THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  ILLINOIS 

LIBRARY 


370 
It6  . 

No.  26-34 


ssarissss*" 


__H41 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2011  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign 


http://www.archive.org/details/studyofsupervise02brow 


BULLETIN  XO.  26 


BUREAU  OF  EDUCATIONAL  RESEARCH 
COLLEGE  OF  EDUCATION 


A  STUDY  OF  SUPERVISED  STUDY 

By 

William  Arthur  Browxell 
Instructor,  College  of  Education 


M  UBKAHY  OF  thf 

IU!      '■  iS?5 

UNSVER'-' 

PRICE  50  CENTS 


PUBLISHED  BY  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS.  URBANA 

1925 


SB 
-  3  \ 


r 
c 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface 5 

Chapter  I.   Introductory  Statement 7 

Chapter  II.   The  Technique  of  Supervised  Study 12 

Chapter  III.   Merits  of  Supervised  Study 20 

A.  Merits  claimed  on  the  basis  of  opinion 21 

1.  Individual    opinion 21 

2.  Consensus  of  opinion 25 

B.  Merits  claimed  on  the  basis  .of  experimentation 29 

1.  Crude    experimentation 30 

2.  Controlled    experimentation 32 

Chapter  IV.    Concluding  Statement 44- 

Bibliography 46 


640609 


PREFACE 

This  bulletin  illustrates  a  type  of  educational  research  which  is 
much  needed.  A  multitude  of  "original"  studies  have  been  reported 
in  our  educational  periodicals  and  in  bulletins  and  monographs,  but 
very  few  critical  summaries  of  such  work  are  to  be  found.  The  litera- 
ture on  many  educational  topics  is  now  so  vast  that  very  few  students 
can  find  the  time  to  read  it.  If  waste  is  to  be  avoided,  summaries  must 
be  prepared  in  order  that  the  results  of  "original"  studies  may  be 
sufficiently  accessible  to  teachers,  principals,  superintendents,  and 
other  students  of  Education. 

The  need  for  critical  summaries  of  our  educational  literature  is 
even  greater  than  the  mere  vastness  of  it  indicates.  Unfortunately,  a 
considerable  portion  of  what  has  been  written  has  little  value  and  in 
some  cases  reports  of  "original"  studies  are  misleading,  if  not  erron- 
eous. Doubtless,  Mr.  Brownell's  conclusion  in  regard  to  the  general 
character  of  the  literature  relating  to  supervised  study  would  apply 
also  to  the  literature  on  other  topics.  In  the  concluding  chapter  of 
this  bulletin  he  says,  "it  must  be  admitted  that  an  unfortunately 
large  amount  of  writing  on  supervised  study  is  repetitious  and,  to 
put  it  mildly,  futile  .  .  .  Many  of  the  investigations  of  supervised 
study  appear  to  represent  much  wasted  effort  since  it  is  unnecessary 
to  prove  the  obvious." 

Mr.  Brownell  has  rendered  a  distinct  service  by  preparing  a 
critical  summary  of  over  450  pages  of  material  relating  to  supervised 
study,  and  it  is  hoped  that  the  publication  of  this  "Study  of  Super- 
vised Study"  will  encourage  students  of  Education  to  undertake 
similar  studies  of  the  literature  on  other  topics. 

Walter  S.  Monroe,  Director. 
April  17,  1925. 


A  STUDY  OF  SUPERVISED  STUDY 

CHAPTER  I 
INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENT 

The  problem.  During  the  past  fifteen  years,  a  very  large  place 
in  educational  literature  has  been  occupied  by  discussions  of  the 
theory  and  practice  of  supervised  study.  In  the  appended  bibli- 
ography magazine  articles  which  total  more  than  450  pages  are  listed, 
and  these  represent  no  more  than  a  small  sample  of  the  total  litera- 
ture on  this  topic. 

In  this  bulletin  we  are  interested  in  discovering  what  is  being 
said  and  written  about  supervised  study  as  it  applies  to  the  secondary 
school.  Our  plan  is  not  to  present  a  mere  summary  of  the  printed 
matter  on  the  subject,  a  compilation,  as  it  were,  of  the  opinions  of 
this  and  of  that  writer;  but  rather  to  assume  throughout  a  critical 
attitude  which  will  look  into  the  evidence  for  the  conclusions  reached 
by  the  writers. 

General  plan  of  report.  After  discussing  the  meaning  of  the 
term  supervised  study  as  it  is  found  in  the  literature,  and  after  de- 
fining the  terms  which  will  be  employed  in  this  report,  the  discussion 
will  be  carried  on  under  the  following  heads: 

The  Technique  of  Supervised  Study.- 

The  Merits  of  Supervised  Study. 

A.  Merits  claimed  on  the  basis  of  opinion.  

B.  Merits  claimed  on  the  basis  of  experimentation.  — » 
Concluding  Statement. 

Variations  in  meaning  of  "supervised  study."  Our  first  task  is 
one  of  definition.  Manifestly  we  must  define  "supervised  study" 
before  we  can  reasonably  attempt  an  evaluation  of  this  phase  of 
school  procedure.  This  matter  of  definition  is  the  more  necessary 
because  of  lack  of  agreement  in  the  common  use  of  the  term.  Even 
the  most  cursory  reader  of  the  literature  on  the  subject  must  be 
struck  by  the  diverse  connotations  for  the  term  in  the  hands  of  dif- 
ferent writers. 

[7] 


One  writer  uses  "supervised  study"  to  denote  a  form  of  school 
procedure  in  which  all  formal  recitations  are  eliminated.  A  second 
writer  uses  the  same  term  to  designate  the  practice  of  lengthening 
the  traditional  school  period  and  of  dividing  it  in  such  a  way  that 
the  first  part  is  devoted  to  recitation  and  the  latter  part  to  study 
under  the  direction  of  the  teacher.  A  third  writer  says  nothing  at  all 
of  the  division  of  school  time  when  he  speaks  of  supervised  study, 
but  means  merely  the  guidance  of  the  pupil's  study  by  the  teacher. 

New  terms  to  replace  "supervised  study."  Of  late  there  has 
appeared  in  educational  writings  evidence  of  a  dawning  appreciation 
of  the  significance  of  the  ambiguity  surrounding  the  concept  of 
"supervised  study;"'  and  a  number  of  educators  have  suggested  the 
abandonment  of  the  old  term  in  favor  of  some  new  one. 

Among  these  proposed  substitutes  for  "supervised  study"  we 
find  (a)  "supervised  learning,"  suggested  by  Inglis,1  (b)  "directing 
study,"  sponsored  by  Miller,2  (c)  "directed  study,"  used  by  Burra 
and  Morrison,4  and  (d)  "supervision  of  study,"  employed  somewhat 
generally  in  literature. 

For  these  newer  terms  two  advantages  are  claimed,  the  one 
negative  and  the  other  positive.  The  negative  advantage  is  the  fact 
that  the  substitution  of  a  new  name  serves  to  eliminate  certain  non- 
essential implications  which  through  careless  usage  have  become 
connected  with  the  old  term.  The  positive  advantage  is  that  the  new 
name  centers  the  emphasis  and  the  attention  upon  the  more  impor- 
tant ideas  in  the  procedure. 

Two  important  facts  resulting  from  analysis.  We  may  note 
two  facts  of  some  importance.  In  the  first  place,  writers  on  super- 
vised study  do  agree  on  one  essential  point — the  immature  pupil 
needs  some  sort  of  guidance  in  study.  This  guidance,  all  agree,  has 
not  been  sufficiently  furnished.  Under  the  traditional  order  of  school 
procedure,  the  child  without  direction  acquired  as  best  he  might  all 
that  he  could,  while  the  teacher's  task  consisted  most  largely  in 
assigning  lessons  and  in  measuring  the  quality  and  the  quantity  of 
the  pupil's  achievement.  „ 

Inglis,  Alexander.  Principles  of  Secondary  Education.  Boston:  Houghton 
Mifflin  Company,  1918,  p.  713. 

"Miller,  H.  L.  Directing  Study.  New  York:  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.  1922. 
377  p. 

3Burr,  A.  W.    "Directed  study,"  School   Review.  27:90-100,   February,   1919. 

4Morrison,  Henry  C.  The  term  ''directed  study-'  is  employed  by  this  writer 
in  several  places  in  the  articles  listed  in  the  bibilography. 

[8] 


In  the  second  place,  their  disagreement  regarding  the  meaning 
and  use  of  the  term  ''supervised  study"  may  in  part  be  accounted  for. 
This  confusion  seems  to  be  due  principally  to  two  causes:  a  differ- 
ence in  the  angles  from  which  various  writers  have  looked  upon 
supervised  study;  and  a  failure  to  discriminate  consistently  between 
two  essentially  different  phases  of  supervised  study. 

Confusion  caused  by  differences  in  writers'  points  of  emphasis. 
Involved  in  any  scheme  of  supervised  study  are  the  three  agencies — 
teacher,  pupil,  and  administrator.  We  find  some  writers  emphasizing 
the  place  of  the  teacher  in  supervised  study,  and  in  this  case,  super- 
vised study  becomes  a  method  of  teaching.5  Others  write  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  pupil,  and  here  the  development  of  economical  and 
effective  habits  of  study  is  considered  the  primary  aim  of  supervised 
study.6  By  far  the  greatest  number  of  writers,  however,  view  super- 
vised study  through  the  eyes  of  the  administrator.  In  this  sense,  the 
term  is  used  to  denote  a  part  or  the  whole  of  some  administrative 
measure — equivalent,  in  many  cases,  to  the  notion  of  individual 
instruction,  or  the  lengthened  period,  or  the  divided  period.  This  use 
of  the  term  is  especially  conducive  to  ambiguity  and  to  consequent 
confusion  of  thought. 

It  is  at  once  apparent  that  these  different  points  of  view  do  not 
supply  meanings  for  supervised  study  which  are  totally  unrelated. 
All  overlap  to  a  greater  or  less  extent.  Thus,  when  the  chief  consid- 
eration is  administrative,  supervised  study  will  still  necessarily  imply 
certain  procedures  which  concern  the  pupil  and  the  teacher. 

Confusion  caused  by  failure  to  discriminate  between  different 
phases  of  supervised  study.  While  much  of  the  ambiguity  regarding 
the  meaning  of  supervised  study  may  be  attributed  to  the  cause  just 
discussed,  a  more  important  source  of  confusion  is  to  be  found  in  a 
general  failure  among  writers  to  keep  in  mind  the  essentially  com- 
plex nature  of  supervised  study.  In  any  scheme  whatsoever  for 
supervised  study  there  are  two  fundamentally  different  aspects: 
( 1 )  the  direction  of  the  pupil  in  study;  (2)  the  form  of  school  organ- 
ization established  to  facilitate  the  administration  of  this  direction. 


""Koos,  Leonard  V.  The  Junior  High  School.  New  York:  Harcourt,  Brace, 
and  Howe,  1920,  p.  153. 

"Hall-Quest,  Alfred  L.  ''The  direction  of  study  as  chief  aim  of  the  high 
school,"  Chapter  X,  The  Modern  High  School,  edited  by  Charles  H.  Johnston.  New 
York:   Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  1916,  p.  265-94. 

[9] 


That  the  two  are  very  closely  related  is  obvious;  the  first,  guidance, 
is  naturally  dependent  upon  some  plan  of  school  organization  for 
execution.  But  the  fact  that  these  two  aspects  are  not  identical  nor 
mutually  inclusive  in  significance  and  implication  is  not  commonly 
recognized. 

The  statement  that  the  primary  purpose  of  supervised  study  is 
to  give  the  pupil  a  form  of  guidance  which  he  really  needs  in  order 
to  acquire  adequate  habits  of  study  would  probably  go  unchallenged; 
and  yet  we  find  all  too  frequently  that  the  machinery  of  administra- 
tion, which  is  but  the  vehicle  to  serve  the  prime  purpose,  assumes  the 
position  of  major  consideration  in  theory  and  practice.  In  educa- 
tional literature,  the  technique  of  administration — distribution  of 
time  writhin  the  period,  disposition  of  the  recitation,  and  the  like — is 
much  discussed,  wdiile  matters  regarding  the  actual  help  in  study, 
which  is  the  reform  demanded,  receive  only  incidental  treatment. 
The  "side  show"  has  swallowed  up  the  "main  show." 

Terms  used  in  report.  A  clear  definition  of  the  terms  to  be  used 
in  this  report  is  necessary  in  order  to  avoid  the  very  confusion  which 
is  prevalent  in  educational  literature  on  supervised  study.  Three 
terms,  growing  out  of  the  analysis  of  the  nature  of  supervised  study, 
are  to  be  used. 

1.  "Pupil-direction."  The  essential  element  in  supervised  study 
is  the  supplying  of  proper  guidance  to  the  learner  in  acquiring  effi- 
cient habits  of  study.  This  element  will  be  designated  as  "pupil- 
direction." 

2.  "Technique."  To  refer  to  the  second  of  the  elements,  that  is, 
the  formal  procedure  by  which  the  school  as  an  institution  furnishes 
this  pupil-direction,  the  term  "technique"  will  be  used.  The  chief 
aspect  of  technique  is,  of  course,  administrative.  The  technique  of 
supervised  study  will  be  found  to  take  various  specialized  forms,  and 
in  order  to  differentiate  between  these,  a  descriptive  word  or  phrase 
will  be  employed  as  seems  appropriate. 

3.  "Supervised  study."  The  old  term  "supervised  study"  will 
be  retained  to  represent  any  possible  combination  of  the  two  elements, 
"pupil-direction"  and  "technique."  Its  connotation  will  be  anything 
but  specific,  and  it  will  be  employed  a-s  a  very  general  term  wherever 
careful  discrimination  between  the  two  fundamental  elements  is 
unnecessary. 

[10] 


Re-statement  of  the  problem.  At  the  outset,  the  purpose  of  this 
report  was  stated  to  be  an  analysis  and  evaluation  QL_s.u_pexYis.ed 
study  in  the  secondary  school  as  disclosed  in  periodical  literature. 
The  terms  defined  in  the  preceding  paragraphs  make  possible  a  more 
restricted  definition  of  the  problem.  The  first  of  the  elements  in 
supervised  study,  pupil-direction,  will  be  treated  only  incidentally; 
the  second,  technique,  will  receive  primary  consideration. 


[11] 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  SUPERVISED  STUDY 

Forms  of  supervised-study  technique  varied.  One  usually  reads 
of  supervised  study  as  of  a  single,  simple,  unvarying  form  of  school 
procedure.  That  is,  there  seems  to  be  in  educational  literature  an 
implicit  assumption  that  supervised  study  is  the  same  wherever 
found — that  if  two  schools  have  made  provision  for  supervised  study, 
the  two  situations  in  all  respects  will  be  approximately  identical  and 
the  results,  equivalent.  When,  however,  the  reader  turns  to  a  more 
careful  consideration  of  the  technique  of  supervised  study,  he  dis- 
covers that  the  usual  impression  has  little  foundation  in  fact.  Instead, 
he  finds  several  complex,  variable  forms  of  practical  school  organiza- 
tion   to    administer    pupil-direction.     Thus,    Willett1    mentions    nine 

forms,  Hall-Quest.2  fourteen.  Hines.3  eieht.  and  so  on.     In  fact,  the 

•.      .  . 

periodical  articles  examined  supply  a  total  of  fourteen  types  of  tech- 
nique sufficiently  different  to  be  classified  separately.  If  we  were  to 
add  to  these  main  types  several  subtypes,  which  by  reason  of  modi- 
fications in  procedure  would  certainly  alter  the  results  obtained,  the 
list  would  easily  mount  to  twenty-five  or  thirty.  The  exact  number 
is  unimportant — the  essential  point  is  that  all  of  these  various  forms 
are  labeled  by  the  one  term  supervised  study. 

Types  of  technique.  The  fourteen  main  types  of  technique  are 
listed  and  described  very  briefly  in  the  following  pages.  In  a  number 
of  the  cases,  especially  the  first  two,  the  possibility  of  variation 
within  the  type  is  illustrated. 

1.  Special  study  halls.  In  this  plan,  the  study  period  is  sepa- 
rated from  the  recitation.  The  students  segregated  for  study  occupy 
either  (a)  large  assembly  halls  or  (b)  special  small  rooms,  holding 
perhaps  thirty  pupils  (the  latter  plan  known  as  the  "East  Cleveland" or 


'Willett,  G.  W.  "Supervised  studv  in  high  school."  School  Review.  26:259- 
72.  April,  1918. 

"Hall-Quest.  Alfred  L.  "The  direction  of  study  as  the  chief  aim  of  the  high 
school,"'  Chapter  X.  The  Modern  High  School,  edited  by  Charles  H.Johnston.  New 
York:    Charles  Scribner"s  Sons.  1916.  p.  265-94. 

3Hixes,  H.  C.  "Supervised  study  in  the  junior  high  school,"  School  and 
Society,  6:518-22,  November  3,  1917. 

[12] 


"neighborhood  room"  form  of  supervised  study).  Within  these  rooms 
the  students  proceed  with  study  under  the  direction  of  either  (c) 
special  study  teachers  or  (d)  regular  teachers  who  may  be  assigned 
study-hall  duty  as  part  of  their  daily  programs.  It  will  be  noted  that 
within  this  general  type  of  technique,  four  special  types  may  be 
devised  by  adopting  various  combinations  of  the  factors  (a),  (b), 
(c),  and  (d). 

2.  The  conference  plan.  This  form  of  technique  is  planned  to 
provide  direction  in  study  for  individual  pupils,  usually  the  backward. 
Here  too  a  number  of  varying  forms  may  be  recognized.  The  con- 
ference may  be  (a)  voluntary  or  (b)  required,  (c)  for  all  the  pupils 
or  (d)  for  only  those  who  are  behind  in  their  work;  it  may  be  held 
(e)  at  stated  times  or  (f)  by  appointment  (g)  within  the  regular 
school  hours  or  (h)  after  school,  (i)  with  special  teachers  set 
aside  for  the  particular  task  or  (j)  with  the  regular  teachers  of 
the  courses  in  which  directed  study  is  being  given.  Clearly  a  very 
large  number  of  special  types  of  technique  could  be  worked  out  with 
these  variables. 

3.  The  DeKalb  plan.  The  school  program  under  this  plan  pro- 
vides one  period  a  week  for  the  supervision  of  study,  all  the  other 
periods  being  for  the  usual  purposes  of  recitation  and  undirected 
study. 

4.  The  Pueblo  plan.  This  technique  goes  to  the  opposite  ex- 
treme from  the  DeKalb  plan  just  described.  In  the  Pueblo  plan, 
which  was  devised  by  Superintendent  Preston  Search,  all  recitations  are 
abolished,  and  the  whole  school  day  is  devoted  to  study  under  the 
direction  of  teachers.  This  represents  a  return  to  individual  instruc- 
tion par  excellence. 

5.  Daily  extra  period.  This  plan  which,  according  to  Willett,4 
was  used  at Des  Moines,  Iowa,  as  early  as  1906,  and  later  at  Pottstown. 
Pennsylvania,  provides,  as  its  name  implies,  an  extra  period  each  day 
for  the  preparation  of  work  under  supervision.  All  pupils  with  a 
standing  of  90  percent  or  better,  however,  are  excused  from  this  extra 
period  and  are  dismissed  at  the  end  of  the  regular  school  day. 

A  variation  of  this  plan  called  the  "study  class,"  in  which  each 
department  regularly  supplies  a  teacher  for  coaching  the  backward 


Willett,  G.  \Y.    "Supervised  studv  in  high  school,"  School  Review,  26:259- 
72,  April  1918. 

[13] 


pupils  in  an  extra  period,  is  reported  by  Harris.3  Another  adaptation 
of  this  general  technique  is  described  by  Nielson6  under  the  name 
"deficiency  period." 

6.  Differential  plan.  In  this  supervised-study  technique  the 
teacher  is  given  large  discretionary  powers.  There  are  no  specific 
requirements  regarding  the  amount  or  the  nature  of  the  pupil-direc- 
tion to  be  given.  Such  matters  are  left  entirely  to  the  judgment  of 
the  teachers,  the  understanding  being,  however,  that  a  certain  amount 
of  guidance  shall  be  given.  One  feature  of  the  plan  as  described  by 
Burr,7  though  not  under  the  above  name,  is  the  practice  of  furnishing 
pupils  with  printed  cards  of  directions  on  study. 

7.  The  double  period.  The  essential  idea  here  is  that  two  reg- 
ular periods  are  assigned  to  each  of  the  high-school  subjects,  in  one 
of  which  the  pupils  recite  and  in  the  other  of  which  they  stud}'.  The 
common  practice  seems  to  be  to  assign  two  teachers  to  each  subject, 
one  being  in  charge  continuously  of  study  and  the  other,  of  recitation. 
This  results  in  a  definite  break  being  made  between  these  two  phases 
of  the  pupil's  activity. 

Some  authorities  assign  the  credit  of  the  procedure  to  Superin- 
tendent J.  Stanley  Brown,  of  Joliet,  Illinois.  A  description  of  the 
technique  under  the  name  ''the  laboratory-recitation  plan"  is  given 
us  by  Superintendent  I.  M.  Allens  of  Springfield,  Illinois.  The  origi- 
nal supervised  study  technique,  worked  out  by  Superintendent  Ken- 
nedy at  Batavia,  Xew  York,  and  hence  known  as  the  ''Batavia  plan," 
appears  to  have  been  of  this  general  type. 

8.  The  divided  period.  This  technique,  in  one  or  another  of  its 
many  forms,  is  probably  the  most  widely  used.  It  differs  from  the 
double-period  plan  in  that:  first,  customarily  but  one  teacher  is  in 
charge  of  the  group  for  both  study  and  recitation  in  the  same  school 
subject;  and  second,  the  class  activity  is  maintained  as  a  unit,  with- 
out a  break  between  recitation  and  study.  Usually  it  involves  the 
lengthening  of  the  class  period  and  hence  is  sometimes  described  as 
the  "lengthened-period"  plan. 


"Harris,  G.  L.  "Supervised  study  in  the  University  of  Chicago  High  School," 
School  Review,  26:490-510,  September'  1918. 

"Xielsox,  C.  H.  "An  innovation  in  supervised  study,"  School  Review,  25:220. 
March.   1917.     (Editorial  comment.) 

tBurr,  A.  W.    "Directed  study,"  School  Review,  27:90-100.  February,  1919. 

'Allen,  1.  M.  "An  experiment  in  supervised  study,"  School  Review,  25:398- 
411.  June,  1917. 

[14] 


There  is  the  widest  variation  in  this  plan  from  the  standpoint  of 
(a)  length  of  period  and  (b)  distribution  of  time  within  the  period. 
On  the  first  point,  we  have  periods  running  from  fifty  minutes  to 
over  one  hundred,  with  the  commonest  practice  probably  at  about 
sixty  minutes.  On  the  second,  utilization  of  time,  we  have  the  full 
course  of  possibility  from  the  one  extreme  where  the  teacher  employs 
the  class  time  as  she  wishes,  to  the  other  extreme,  where  the  period 
is  definitely  laid  out  into  a  number  of  sub-periods,  each  of  which  is 
intended  for  a  certain  type  of  activity.  As  an  instance  of  this  latter, 
we  have  the  following:9  "recapitulation,  five  minutes;  statement  of 
the  business  of  the  day,  two  minutes;  discussion,  twenty-five  minutes; 
assignment,  five  minutes;  study  period,  twenty-five  minutes."  Proba- 
bly the  commonest  procedure  is  to  divide  the  lengthened  period 
roughly  into  halves,  the  first  being  used  for  recitation,  and  the  second 
for  study. 

What  is  sometimes  called  the  "Merriam  plan"  and  other  times 
the  "Columbia  plan"10  belongs  to  this  general  type  of  technique,  its 
chief  difference  being  the  prominence  given  the  assignment.  One- 
third  of  the  period  is  taken  up  by  the  teacher  for  this  purpose. 

9.  The  Seattle  plan,11  or  the  supervised-home-study  plan. 
While  somewhat  like  the  divided-period  plan,  the  Seattle  plan  differs 
in  its  attitude  toward  home  study.  Steps  are  taken  to  direct  the  study 
at  home  by  means  of  definite  instructions  in  procedure,  specific  tasks 
to  be  accomplished,  and  the  like. 

10.  The  University  High-School  plan,  of  the  University  of 
Chicago.  Here,  practically  the  whole  period  is  devoted  to  study 
under  the  direction  of  the  teacher.  In  this  respect  it  resembles  the 
Pueblo  plan.  The  work  in  the  University  High  School  is  laid  out 
into  what  are  called  "units,"  which  vary  in  length,  usually  from  two 
to  five  weeks,  with  the  particular  subject  and  the  type  of  topic.  At 
the  conclusion  of  the  period  devoted  to  any  one  unit,  the  amount  of 
time  depending  upon  the  ability  of  the  pupil,  opportunity  for  a  form 
of  recitation  is  given,  when  "floor  talks,"  papers,  and  so  forth  may  be 
presented. 


'Young,  Eula,  and  Simpson,  M.  R.  "A  technique  for  the  lengthened  period." 
School  Review,  30:199-204,  March,  1922. 

"Merriam,  Eugene  E.  ''Technique  of  supervised  study,"  School  Review,  26: 
35-38,  January,  1918. 

"Cole,  Thomas  R.  "One  year  of  supervised  study,"  School  Review,  25:331- 
35,  May,  1917. 

[15] 


The  Wisconsin  High  School,  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  fol- 
lows a  similar  procedure:  the  "units"  are  called  "challenges,"  and 
there  is  specific  effort  to  secure  motivation  through  the  grading 
system. 

11.  The  graduated  plan.  This  plan  devised  by  Superintendent 
Paul  Stetson,12  at  Grand  Rapids,  Michigan,  differs  from  all  others  in 
its  appreciation  of  the  varying  needs  of  pupils  in  successive  grades 
for  direction  and  help  in  study.  Thus  in  the  seventh  grade,  thirty 
minutes  are  given  to  recitation  and  thirty  to  study;  in  the  eighth 
grade,  the  ratio  of  time  for  recitation  to  study  is  35:25;  in  the  ninth 
grade,  40:20;  and  in  the  last  three  years,  or  the  senior  high  school, 
45:15.  Beginning  with  the  ninth  grade,  provision  is  made  for  a  "con- 
sultation period"  of  thirty  minutes  a  day  to  take  care  of  the  backward. 

12.  Study  coach.  Hall-Quest13  lists  as  a  form  of  supervised 
study  the  practice  of  providing  the  high  school  with  one  or  more 
special  teachers  whose  sole  task  is  to  train  pupils  in  study-methods. 

13.  Review  groups.  In  the  same  reference,  Hall-Quest  describes 
as  supervised  study  the  segregating  of  backward  children  into  special 
groups  for  instruction.  The  idea  here  is  probably  the  same  as  that 
mentioned  by  Hines14  under  the  name,  "delayed-group  plan." 

14.  Printed  directions.  Hines,  in  the  article  cited,  also  regards 
as  a  form  of  supervised  study  the  practice  of  supplying  to  pupils 
directions  for  study,  such  as  the  study  programs  recommended  by 
Reavis.15  Such  a  procedure,  if  it  stops  at  this  point,  is  certainly  a  far 
cry  from  the  elaborate  plans  for  the  immediate  direction  of  study 
called  for  in  other  schemes  which  we  have  briefly  reviewed. 

Significance  of  the  list.  In  this  list  of  fourteen  distinct  types  we 
have,  on  the  one  hand,  a  very  complex  technique  which  calls  for  a 
period  of  definite  length,  every  day  in  every  school  subject,  divided 
into  sub-periods  of  time,  each  of  which  is  to  be  utilized  for  a  specific 
purpose;  and,  on  the  other,  the  practice  of  giving  pupils  printed  direc- 


12Stetson,  Paul  C.  "A  survey  of  supervised  study,"  The  American  School 
Board  Journal,  54:19-20,  85-86,  June,  1917. 

"Hall-Quest,  Alfred  L.  "The  direction  of  study  as  the  chief  aim  of  the  high 
school,"  Chapter  X,  The  Modern  High  School,  edited  by  Charles  H.  Johnston.  New 
York:    Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  1916,  p.  278. 

"Hines,  H.  C.  "Supervised  study  in  the  junior  high  school,"  School  and 
Society,  6:520,  November  3,  1917. 

15Reavis,  W.  C.  'The  importance  of  study  programs  for  high-school  pupils," 
School  Review,  19:398-405,  June,  1911. 

[16] 


tions  on  how  to  study.  In  between  these  two  extremes  there  are  from 
a  dozen  to  a  score  of  other  schemes  of  all  degrees  of  complexity  and 
definiteness,  but  all,  be  it  noted,  parading  under  the  name  of  "super- 
vised study." 

If  the  advisability  of  recognizing  the  hybrid  nature  of  that 
which  we  call  supervised  study  has  not  been  clear  before,  it  certainly 
should  be  now.  Essentially,  the  only  point  of  agreement  in  all  these 
forms  or  types  of  technique  is  their  purpose  to  provide  means  for 
guiding  the  pupil  in  his  learning  activities.  From  this  common  origin 
spring  all  sorts  of  special  techniques  for  the  achievement  of  the  end. 
The  whole  becomes  complicated  out  of  all  semblance  of  its  origin 
through  administrative  manipulation  until  the  term  supervised  study 
as  commonly  employed  has  very  little  if  any  meaning. 

Variable  factors.  We  have  taken  one  means  of  showing  the 
impossibility  of  ascribing  practical  identity  of  procedure  and  of  re- 
sults to  schools  which  purport  to  be  using  supervised  study.  Our 
method  has  been  to  describe  in  gross  various  techniques  for  adminis- 
tering pupil-guidance  in  study. 

We  may  take  another  method,  somewhat  more  direct,  to  illus- 
trate further  the  possibility  of  variability  in  the  practice  and  in  the 
results  of  supervised  study.  We  shall  here  analyze  the  problem  more 
carefully  witn  a  view  to  isolating  certain  specific  factors  which  may 
vary  in  different  situations.  The  analysis  will  be  suggestive  rather 
than  exhaustive.  Three  types  of  variable  factors  are  recognized: 
1.  those  that  may  vary  between  schools;  2,  those  that  may  vary 
between  types  of  technique;  3,  those  that  may  vary  within  a  single 
type  of  technique  in  the  matter  of  pupil-direction.  Each  of  these 
types  of  factor  will  be  made  clearer  by  subsequent  discussion. 

1.  Variable  factors  between  schools.  Let  us  assume  that  two 
school  systems  adopt  the  same  type  of  technique  for  supervised 
study.  There  will  still  be  present  a  number  of  factors  sufficiently 
different  in  the  two  schools  to  make  doubtful  identity  in  procedure 
or  in  results.  Of  these  we  may  mention  five,  the  influence  of  which 
is  obvious: 

(1)  Material  facilities. 

(2)  Type  of  pupil-material. 

(3)  Particular  curricular  requirements. 

(4)  Teaching    personnel    (factors    other    than    those    involving 
directly  teaching  study-habits). 

(5)  School  standards. 

[17] 


2.  Variable  factors  between  types  of  technique.  Assuming  now 
that  the  two  school  systems  in  our  hypothetical  case  are  practically 
identical  in  the  factors  above  mentioned,  but  that  they  adopt  different 
types  of  technique,  we  may  expect  variation  in  the  two  systems  from 
the  following  factors: 

(6)  Unit  of  instruction — the  individual  pupil,  or  groups  of  pupils. 

(7)  Type  of  pupil  supervised — the  backward,  or  all  the  pupils. 

(8)  Type  of  teacher  directing  study — special  study  teachers,  or 
the  regular  teaching  staff. 

(9)  Nature  of  the  group  of  pupils  supervised — all  studying  the 
same  type  of  material  or  different  types  of  material. 

(10)  Frequency  of  periods  of  supervision — direction  of  study  in 
every  period  or  the  number  of  such  periods  left  to  discre- 
tion of  teacher. 

(11)  Length  of  period  of  supervised  study — from  45  or  50  min- 
utes to  over  100  minutes. 

(12)  Attitude  toward  home  study — home  study  eliminated,  re- 
duced in  amount,  or  retained  in  full;  if  retained,  directed 
or  undirected. 

(13)  Relation  to  the  recitation — the  recitation  eliminated,  re- 
tained in  full,  or  reduced  in  importance. 

(14)  Attitude  toward  study  outside  the  period  of  direction — such 

study  discouraged,  permitted,  or  even  encouraged. 

(15)  Use  made  of  the  period  of  directed  study — for  review  only, 
or  for  advance  work. 

(16)  Amount  of  discretion  left  individual  teachers. 

(17)  Material  facilities  demanded. 

(18)  Length  of  school  day. 

(19)  Relation  of  directed  study  to  grade  in  school.16 

(20)  Distribution  of  supervised  study  by  subjects — mathematics, 
for  example,  seems  especially  receptive  to  the  newer  pro- 
cedure, according  to  some  writers,  and  history  much  less  so. 

(21)  Directions  regarding  the  teacher's  activity  in  guiding  pupils 
in  study. 


10Davis,  Calvin  0.  Junior  High  School  Education.  New  York:  World  Book 
Company,  1924,  p.  44. 

Davis  insists  that  supervised  study  should  be  concentrated  in  the  junior  high 
school,  and  the  amount  of  such  study  reduced  progressively  in  the  higher  years  and 
in  the  senior  high  school.  This  fact  is  recognized  in  the  ''graduated  plan"  described 
earlier. 

[18] 


3.  Variable  factors  within  a  single  type  of  technique.  Impor- 
tant as  are  all  the  preceding  variable  factors,  they  are  certainly  less 
important  than  the  sources  of  variation  which  enter  when  we  consider 
what  is  done  by  the  teacher  in  the  way  of  directing  pupils'  study. 

Let  us  assume  that  it  were  possible  to  standardize  all  the  condi- 
tions affecting  the  two  schools  under  discussion,  including  the  type 
of  technique  adopted  for  the  administration  of  pupil-guidance  in 
study.  We  should  still  have  to  recognize  the  huge  differences  that  are 
possible  in  the  utilization  of  the  time  set  aside  for  the  direction  of 
study.  Here  we  are  dealing  directly  with  the  human  elements  of 
teacher  and  pupil,  which  are  characterized  by  variability.  This  state- 
ment probably  needs  little  defense,  for  it  is  a  matter  of  ready  obser- 
vation that  teaching  varies  regardless  of  subject-matter,  regardless 
of  material  conditions,  regardless  of  technical  control. 

From  this  source  then,  we  may  add  to  our  list  of  variables  the 
following : 

(22)  Teachers'  knowledge  of  the  psychology  of  learning  and  of 
individual  differences. 

(23)  Teachers'  ability  to  apply  this  knowledge  to  the  needs  of 
pupils  in  aiding  them  to  build  up  effective  study  habits. 

(24)  Teachers'  attitude  toward  the  direction  of  stud}'. 

(25)  Teachers'  devices  for  motivation. 

(26)  Teachers'  methods  of  measuring  achievement. 

(27)  The  whole  question  of  pupil  attitude. 

Our  list  of  variables  has  reached  twenty-seven;  some  are  left 
far  short  of  complete  analysis,  and  still  other  variables  might  easily 
be  found.    Enough,  however,  have  been  listed  to  serve  our  purpose. 

Summary.  In  this  chapter  we  have  noted  the  numerous  types 
of  technique  by  which  pupil-direction  is  administered,  and  the  large 
number  of  variable  factors  which  are  involved  in  the  practical  appli- 
cation of  the  supervised-study  procedure.  The  inferences  from  such  a 
survey  are  that,  on  the  administrative  side,  the  term  "supervised 
study"  means  nothing  at  all  specific,  definite,  or  clear,  and  that  any 
general  statements  made  about  it  as  a  single,  simple  form  of  school 
practice  must  be  critically  examined. 


[19] 


CHAPTER  III 
MERITS  OF  SUPERVISED  STUDY 

In  one  form  or  another,  supervised  study  is  to  be  found  in  a 
large  percent  of  the  secondary  schools  of  the  country  at  the  present 
time.  While  supporting  statistics  are  not  at  hand,  the  supervised- 
study  movement  probably  is  still  gaining  rather  than  losing  ground; 
for,  as  Koos1  points  out,  the  tendency  to  question  its  value  is  on 
the  decline. 

We  are  then  led  to  raise  the  question:  Why  is  supervised  study 
so  popular?  Is  it  an  educational  fad  which  is  destined  soon  to  go  the 
way  of  other  fads,  or  is  its  growth  in  practice  based  upon  demon- 
strably sound  values  which  insure  continued  use  and  increasing 
adoption?  In  other  words,  what  are  the  special  merits  of  supervised 
study? 

History  of  supervised-study  movement.  The  history  of  the 
supervised-study  movement,  to  which  we  can  give  only  a  word,  sup- 
plies something  of  an  answer  to  these  questions,  indicating  in  a  gen- 
eral way  that  supervised  study  meets  a  real  need. 

There  is  probably  nothing  essentially  new  about  the  element, 
pupil-direction;  good  teachers  always  have  realized  the  limitations  of 
their  pupils  in  the  matter  of  study  and  have  supplied  guidance.  The 
supervised-study  movement  has  contributed  chiefly  by  making  such 
study-direction  more  general,  more  systematic,  and  more  intelligent. 

Parker2  has  traced  the  development  of  supervised  study  on  the 
side  of  technique,  showing  its  modest  beginnings  through  what  may 
be  described  as  an  accidental  success  at  Batavia,  New  York,  under 
Superintendent  Kennedy.  Impetus  was  given  the  movement  by  the 
popular  outcry  at  the  time  against  the  necessity  of  home  study  and 
by  the  experimental  investigations   of   Reavis3   and   Breslich,4  who 


^oos,  Leonard  V.  The  Junior  High  School.  New  York:  Harcourt,  Brace, 
and  Howe,  1920,  p.  153. 

2Parker,  Samuel  Chester.  Methods  of  Teaching  in  High  Schools.  Boston: 
Ginn  and  Company,  1920,  p.  393-402. 

3Reavis,  W.  C.  "'Factors  that  determine  the  habits  of  study  in  grade  pupils," 
Elementary  School  Teacher,  12:71-81.  October,  1911. 

''Breslich,  E.  R.  "Teaching  high-school  pupils  how  to  study,"  School  Review, 
20:505-15,  October,  1912. 

[20] 


proved  that  home  conditions  are  not  always  conducive  to  effective 
study  and  that  directed  school  study  produces  measurably  superior 
results. 

The  rapid  spread  of  the  supervised  study  procedure  during  the 
last  fifteen  years  is  due  undoubtedly  to  the  operation  of  a  number  of 
influences;  such  as,  the  increasing  realization  of  the  facts  and  the 
implications  of  individual  differences,  development  of  new  methods 
of  teaching,  changing  conceptions  of  the  ends  of  education,  advances 
in  applied  psychology,  closer  study  of  the  problems  of  educational 
administration,  and  the  like. 

Basis  of  claims  for  supervised  study.  We  are  not  so  much  inter- 
ested, however,  in  learning  the  general  historical  reasons  which  may 
be  assigned  for  the  success  of  the  supervised-study  movement  as  we 
are  in  finding  out  the  specific  claims  advanced  by  various  writers  for 
the  new  procedure.  Our  study  of  the  merits  of  supervised  study  falls 
naturally  under  the  following  heads: 

A.  Merits  claimecLon  tfte-ba-sis  of  opinion. 

1.  Individual  opinion. 

2.  Consensus  of  opinion. 

B.  Merits  claimed  on  the  basis  of  experimentation. 

1.  Crude  experimentation — purely  statistical. 

2.  Controlled  experimentation.    — 

Not  all  of  the  articles  canvassed  for  material  on  the  topic  can  be 
placed  finally  in  one  or  another  of  the  above  groups.  Where  the  con- 
tent of  a  particular  article  relates  to  more  than  one  of  the  above  rub- 
rics, it  is  treated  in  the  various  proper  connections.  The  discussion 
from  this  point  will  follow  the  outline  suggested. 

A.  MERITS  CLAIMED  ON  THE  BASIS  OF  OPINION 
1.  Individual  opinion. 

The  proponents  of  supervised  study  are  by  no  means  slow  to 
advance  claims  of  superiority  for  the  new  over  the  traditional  study- 
recitation  type  of  procedure.  In  the  survey  of  the  educational  litera- 
ture covered  in  this  paper,  we  find  thirty-four  specific  merits  of 
supervised  study.  These  claims  are  listed  below.  No  attempt  has 
been  made  to  assign  authorities  for  the  statements;  many  are  made 
by  more  than  one  writer,  others  as  here  given  have  been  re-worded 
from  a  number  of  similar  statements  by  different  writers.  While 
even  with  this  revision  there  still  remains  a  certain  amount  of  over- 
lapping, the  claims  are  relatively  distinct. 

[21] 


(1)  Supervised  study  insures  specific  rather  than  incidental 
instruction. 

(2)  Supervised  study  makes  the  school  program  flexible  and 
admits  of  easy  and  quick  adjustment  to  unusual  circum- 
stances. 

(3)  Supervised  study  assures  a  more  definite,  a  more  complete 
assignment. 

(4)  Supervised  study  reduces,  eliminates,  or  improves  the  qual- 
ity of  home  study. 

(5)  Supervised  study  recognizes  in  practice  the  facts  of  indi- 
vidual differences  in  pupil  ability,  assuring  more  adequate 
attention  especially  to  the  needs  of  the  duller  pupils. 

(6)  Supervised  study  shortens  lessons  and  therefore  affords 
opportunity  for  more  intensive  drill  on  the  shortened  lesson. 

(7)  Supervised  study  provides  the  teacher  an  opportunity  to 
treat  intensively  and  extensively  new  topics  or  bodies  of 
material. 

(8)  Supervised  study  dignifies  studying  and  learning  in  the  eyes 
of  the  pupil  and  therefore  enlists  his  greater  effort. 

(9)  Supervised  study  enables  the  teacher  to  give  both  the  gen- 
eral and  the  specific  guidance  necessary,  rather  than  limit- 
ing her  to  the  more  general  type  alone  as  under  the  older 
procedure. 

(10)  Supervised  study  makes  the  teacher  take  a  different  attitude 
toward  the  pupil — the  individual  becomes  the  unit  of  in- 
struction. By  coming  into  closer  contact  with  the  pupil,  the 
teacher  approaches  him  on  a  new  and  desirable  level. 

(11)  Supervised  study  gives  the  pupil  a  new  view  of  his  teacher, 
as  a  friend  and  guide;  he  consequently  takes  greater  interest 
in  his  school  work. 

(12)  Supervised  study  makes  it  possible  to  encourage  special 
ability  to  a  greater  extent  than  formerly,  through  the  assign- 
ment of  extra  tasks  of  interest  to  brighter  pupils. 

(13)  Supervised  study  actually  causes  a  saving  in  time,  for  it 
means  study  under  skilled  direction  rather  than  idleness 
under  conditions  which  provide  little  or  no  guidance  or 
encouragement. 


[22] 


Supervised  study  secures  the  more  complete  motivation  of 
learning;  the  pupil  has  his  interest  aroused  through  rivalry 
with  a  successful  friend. 

Supervised  study  makes  the  classroom  a  place  for  something 
more  than  lesson-hearing;  there  is  less  attention  to  testing 
and  more  to  learning. 

Supervised  study  regularly  results  in  the  improvement  of 
the  quality  of  work. 

Supervised  study  reduces  the  number  of  failures  and  the 
amount  of  elimination. 

Supervised  study  makes  possible  the  giving  of  help  when 
and  where  needed,  and  thus  assures  a  continuous  checking 
up  on  results  and  progress. 

Supervised  study  improves  the  study  habits  of  the  pupils. 
Supervised  study  brings  about  a  better  distribution  of  marks. 
Supervised  study  fills  the  pupil  with  eagerness  to  go  beyond 
the  immediate  task;  makes  knowledge  for  its  own  sake  a 
desirable  end  to  the  pupil. 

Supervised  study  makes  possible  sound  educational  guid- 
ance. 

Supervised  study  supplies  dependable  data  for  vocational 
guidance. 

Supervised  study  represents  a  return  to  fundamentals  in 
teaching;  puts  the  emphasis  on  the  right  phases  of  teaching, 
and  hence  elevates  and  dignifies  the  profession. 
Supervised  study  develops  school  spirit. 
Supervised  study  fosters  and  encourages  the  qualities  of 
good  citizenship  among  pupils  such  as  cooperation,  self- 
reliance,  initiative,  and  the  like. 

Supervised  study  makes  possible  the  teaching  of  worth- 
while units  of  material  as  projects  that  challenge  the  best 
in  the  pupil. 

Supervised  study  forces  the  teacher  to  make  a  study  of 
study,  and  therefore  of  learning,  and  leads  directly  to  bet- 
ter teaching. 

Supervised  study  is  very  popular — with  teacher  and  pupil 
alike. 

Supervised  study  removes  many  of  the  difficulties  of  disci- 
pline. 


[23] 


(31)  Supervised  study  enables  the  teacher  to  handle  more  pupils. 

(32)  Supervised  study  eliminates  the  lazy  teacher. 

(33)  Supervised  study  enables  a  class  to  cover  more  ground. 

(34)  Supervised  study  develops  the  pupil's  character  by  provid- 
ing more  "situations"  (meaning  of  the  term  "situations" 
not  made  clear). 

Criticism  of  the  list.  One  can  hardly  read  such  an  array  of 
claims  for  anything,  much  less  for  an  educational  procedure,  without 
entertaining  strong  doubts  concerning  their  validity.  The  general 
implication  in  the  list  of  claims  advanced  for  supervised  study  is  that 
we  have  in  this  new  procedure  the  panacea  for  most  of  our  educa- 
tional ills.  The  reader  who  is  inclined  to  be  critical  will,  however, 
find  a  great  deal  to  question  in  the  claimed  merits  of  supervised 
study.    We  shall  consider  five  possible  objections. 

First,  the  claims  are  made  as  if  they  must  inevitably  follow  upon 
the  introduction  of  supervised  study  into  a  school  system.  There  is 
the  implicit  assumption  that  supervised  study  works  by  magic.  The 
enterprising  administrator  needs  but  to  pen  an  order  for  the  institut- 
ing of  supervised  study  and  over  night  all  of  the  stated  advantages 
of  the  new  procedure  put  in  their  appearance.  Any  such  implication 
is,  of  course,  absurd.  There  is  nothing  inherent  in  the  technique  of 
supervised  study  which  can  possibly  guarantee  successful  functioning. 
The  important  factor  in  the  situation,  as  in  all  school  situations,  is 
the  teacher.  Under  supervised  study,  the  quality  of  work  may  be 
raised,  pupils'  ability  to  study  may  be  improved,  and  so  forth,  pro- 
vided that  the  teacher  directs  her  activity  and  that  of  the  pupils 
toward  these  ends. 

Second,  these  claims  are  made  for  supervised  study  as  if  it 
existed  in  but  a  single  form.  Our  earlier  discussion  has  shown  the 
falsity  of  any  such  assumption.  It  is  little  short  of  ridiculous  to  make 
general  claims  of  virtue  for  all  the  forms  of  supervised  study,  for 
certain  advantages  may  accrue  to  one  form  but  be  entirely  absent 
in  others. 

Third,  some  of  the  claims  are  inconsistent  with  each  other.  We 
may  cite  the  conflicting  statements  that  supervised  study  permits 
more  ground  to  be  covered  and  that  it  is  responsible  for  shorter  and 
more  intensively  treated  lessons. 

Fourth,  others  of  the  claims  may  well  be  doubted  on  the  face 
of  them;  for  instance,  the  statement  that  supervised  study  enables 

[24] 


the  teacher  to  handle  more  pupils.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  while  this 
may  be  true  from  the  "technique  point  of  view,"  it  is  utterly  false 
when  the  essential  element  in  supervised  study — namely,  pupil- 
direction  in  learning,  is  considered.  Certainly,  once  an  optimum 
number  of  pupils  has  been  passed,  the  teacher's  effective  attention 
to  the  needs  of  the  individuals  in  her  group  must  suffer.  Another 
such  claim  is  that  supervised  study  eliminates  the  lazy  teacher.  This 
much-to-be-desired  state  of  affairs  can  hardly  be  attained  in  any 
such  fashion  if  it  can  be  attained  at  all.  As  sometimes  administered, 
supervised  study  may  actually  increase  the  happiness  of  the  lot  of 
the  lazy  teacher. 

Fifth,  many  of  the  claims  for  supervised  study  might  likewise 
be  made  and  with  equal  validity  for  the  traditional  type  of  procedure. 
For  example,  what  is  there  about  supervised  study  which  necessarily 
develops  school  spirit,  builds  character,  inculcates  the  ideals  and 
attitudes  of  the  good  citizen  more  effectively  than  can  be  done  by  a 
good  corps  of  teachers  under  the  older  form  of  organization? 
2.  Consensus  of  opinion. 

Five  studies  based  upon  questionnaires  will  be  treated  in  order 
to  discover  what  those  who  are  most  directly  and  vitally  concerned 
with  the  practice  of  supervised  study — the  pupils,  teachers  and  prin- 
cipals— think  about-the  new  procedure.  After  a  brief  description  of 
the  nature  of  these  articles,  the  data  concerning  the  opinions  of  the 
teachers  will  be  presented  in  tabular  form;  those  of  the  pupils  and 
of  the  principals  will  be  handled  in  a  paragraph  or  two,  since  there 
have  been  reported  only  two  studies  for  each. 

Description  of  articles.  Cole's5  article  reports  the  attitude  of 
sixty  of  his  teachers  after  one  year's  trial  with  the  following  plan  of 
supervised  study;  the  school  day  was  divided  into  five  sixty-minute 
periods,  the  time  within  the  periods  being  apportioned  roughly 
according  to  the  needs  of  the  particular  subjects — as  forty  minutes 
for  recitation  and  twenty  for  study  in  the  "academic"  subjects.  Home 
study  was  not  eliminated,  but  was 'directed  as  far  as  possible.  Extra 
assignments  were  given  the  brighter  pupils. 

Willed:"  addressed  his  questions  to  532  pupils  and  twenty-nine 
teachers  after  a  four-year  trial  of  some  undescribed  form  of  super- 


5Cole,  Thomas  R.   ''One  year  of  supervised  study,"  School  Review,  25:331-35, 
May,  1917. 

"Willett,  G.  W.    Supervised  study  in  high  school,"    School  Review,  26:259-72, 
April,  1918. 

[25] 


vised  study  in  a  six-year  high  school.  The  length  of  the  try-out  period 
furnishes  a  more  reliable  basis  for  estimate  than  in  most  of  the 
studies  reported. 

Proctor7  sent  questionnaires  to  the  principals  of  forty-two  Pacific 
Coast  high  schools,  where,  for  the  most  part,  the  double-period  or 
the  divided-period  type  of  technique  was  employed.  Of  this  number 
thirty-one  replied. 

Erickson*  tried  out  a  double-period  plan  of  supervised  study — 
five  eighty-minute  periods  a  day — for  six  months,  and  then  ques- 
tioned his  pupils  regarding  their  attitude  toward  the  innovation.  The 
shortness  of  the  try-out,  however,  places  definite  limitation  on  the 
value  of  the  opinions  given. 

Brown  and  Worthington9  have  contributed  the  most  recent  study 
of  this  type,  following  their  cooperative  experimentation  with  five 
Wisconsin  high  schools.  The  trial  period  of  supervised  study  in  the 
different  schools  varied,  but  in  none  did  it  last  more  than  four  and 
a  half  months.  At  the  end  of  this  time,  opinions  were  secured  from 
five  principals,  eight  teachers,  and  a  number  of  pupils. 

Attitude  of  pupils.  We  may  now  turn  to  a  consideration  of  the 
pupil-attitude  toward  supervised  study.  Willett  found  that  94  per- 
cent of  his  532  pupils  preferred  the  supervised-study  technique  to 
the  traditional  form  of  school  organization,  and  Erickson  reported 
78  percent  of  his  pupils  (the  number  is  not  given)  as  similarly 
inclined.  Keeping  in  mind  the  limitations  of  opinions  in  general,  and 
of  those  collected  by  questionnaires  in  particular,  we  still  seem  to  be 
safe  in  saying  that  supervised  study  is  popular  with  the  pupils. 
Erickson  also  found  that  56.5  percent  of  his  pupils  believed  they  did 
their  best  studying  at  school.  Comparing  the  quality  of  their  work 
under  supervised  study  with  that  of  the  preceding  year  under  the 
usual  organization,  31  percent  of  the  pupils,  according  to  Erickson, 
thought  they  did  better  work  under  the  new  plan;  42  percent  noticed 
no  difference;  19  percent  thought  they  did  worse.  All  was  not  clear 
gain  then  in  the  minds  of  the  pupils.  Forty-nine  percent  of  the  pupils 
thought  they  put  a  smaller  total  amount  of  time  on  study  with  the 


tProctor,  W.  H.  '"Supervised  study  on  the  Pacific  Coast,"  School  and  Society, 
6:326-28,  September  15.  1917. 

sEricksox,  J.  E.  "The  results  of  supervised  study  in  the  Houghton,  Michigan, 
High  School,"  School  Review,  24:752-58,  December,  1916. 

"Browx,  \Y.  W.,  and  Worthixgtox,  J.  E.  '"Supervised  study  in  Wisconsin 
high  schools,"  School  Review,  32:603-12,  October,  1924. 

[26] 


TABLE  I.  ATTITUDE  OF  TEACHERS  TOWARD  SUPERVISED  STUDY 


Question 

and 
Author 


Number 

of 
Teachers 


Percent  of  Total  Number  Questioned 


Better 

Results 


No  Appa- 
rent Dif- 
ference 


Poorer 
Results 


No  Answer 
or  Vague 
Answer 


Pupil  preparation  of 
lesson. 
Cole 

Opportunity  to  aid  pupils 
Cole 

Opportunity     to    attain 
ideal  in  teaching. 

Willett 

Brown  and 

Worthington 

Quality  of  work  of  pupils. 
Cole 

Amount  of  work  covered. 

Cole...*. 

Willett 


60 
60 

29 
8 

60 


60 
29 


70 

75 

79 
100 

60 


33 
24 


20 
1 

10 
0 

33 


60 

58 


5 
15 

4 
0 


0 

15 


new  procedure;  30  percent  could  note  no  difference;  and  21  percent 
said  they  had  to  study  more.  Here  again,  all  is  not  to  the  credit  of 
supervised  study. 

Brown  and  Worthington  asked  the  pupils  of  one  algebra  and 
of  one  English  class,  who  had  been  in  the  experimental  sections  in 
their  investigation,  their  attitude  toward  supervised  study.  It  is 
interesting  to  note  that  while  the  algebra  pupils  were  unanimously 
in  favor  of  supervised  study,  eighteen  of  the  twenty-six  pupils  in 
English  preferred  the  recitation  procedure.  Although  the  numbers 
involved  are  small,  there  seems  to  be  evidence  that  other  factors  than 
the  technical  organization  of  supervised  study  play  the  predominant 
part  in  determining  its  success  in  any  specific  situation. 

Attitude  of  teachers  toward  supervised  study.  Cole,  Willett,  and 
Brown  and  Worthington  have  given  us  information  regarding  the 
views  teachers  take  of  supervised  study.  These  data  are  presented  in 
Table  I.  In  the  left  column  there  are  given  the  questions  asked,  the 
investigator's  name,  and  the  number  of  teachers  questioned.  In  this 
form,  the  facts  are  readily  obtained  and  need  little  explanation. 


[27] 


Perhaps  the  most  surprising  fact  in  the  table,  in  view  of  the 
sweeping  claims  made  for  supervised  study,  is  the  lack  of  agreement 
in  teachers'  opinions.  The  greatest  support  is  given  the  claim  that 
through  supervised  study  teachers  can  better  realize  the  standard  or 
ideal  they  have  set  themselves,  and  yet  but  80  percent  in  an  actual 
trial  find  such  to  be  the  case,  (the  Brown-Worthington  study  con- 
tains but  eight  expressions  of  opinion — too  few  to  be  given  much 
weight). 

Considerable  doubt  is  thrown  upon  the  claim  that  more  ground 
can  be  covered  under  supervised  study  if  we  are  prepared  to  accept 
the  above  figures.  Less  than  one-fourth  of  Willett's  teachers  were 
able  to  accomplish  more,  and  the  gain  for  these  is  offset  by  loss  with 
other  teachers.  Cole's  figures,  however,  lend  some  support  to  the 
claim.  In  general,  the  data  seem  to  reflect  a  sentiment  which  was 
stated  some  pages  earlier — that  supervised  study,  like  all  other 
phases  of  teaching,  is  a  matter,  not  of  a  system  nor  of  a  formal 
scheme,  but  of  the  individual  teacher. 

Attitude  of  principals  toward  supervised  study.  Facts  regarding 
the  attitude  of  principals  toward  supervised  study  are  given  us  by 
Proctor  and  by  Brown  and  Worthington.  The  thirty-one  principals 
who  returned  statements  to  Proctor  were  practically  unanimously  in 
favor  of  the  particular  supervised-study  technique  which  they  em- 
ployed. There  was  the  same  agreement  that  standards  of  scholarship 
had  been  raised  and  eliminations  through  failure  had  been  lowered. 
Some  quantitative  support  is  given  these  facts,  evidently  as  the  result 
of  some  study  by  the  principals  themselves.  (These  criteria  of  success 
will  be  considered  later,  in  another  section  of  the  report.)  Eighty- 
four  percent  of  the  principals  replying  stated  that  the  pupils'  study 
habits  seemed  to  have  improved  under  supervised  study;  72  percent 
thought  the  pupils  were  studying  less  at  home  and  completing  their 
work  in  school;  80  percent  thought  that  both  the  teachers  and  the 
pupils  preferred  the  supervised-study  procedure  to  the  older  type  of 
organization. 

The  chief  objection  that  can  be  raised  to  this  study  of  Proctor's 
is  the  fact  that  the  principals  were  asked  questions  about  which,  with- 
out elaborate  testing  and  investigation,  they  must  have  really  known 
very  little.  For  example,  the  average  high-school  principal  would 
have  little  opportunity  to  gather  the  information  concerning  the  state 
of  his  pupils'  study  habits,  even  granted  that  there  were  an  easy, 
objective  method  for  doing  so. 

[28] 


In  the  Brown-Worthington  report,  all  of  the  five  principals 
thought  the  type  of  supervised  study  could  be  extended  easily 
throughout  the  system  without  requiring  any  great  expansion  of  the 
teaching  force.  Four  of  the  five  were  heartily  in  favor  of  the  tech- 
nique used  in  the  experiment,  while  one  disapproved  of  it. 

Claims  for  supervised  study  given  little  support  by  data.  If  we 
accept  at  their  face  value  the  data  which  we  have  examined  in  these 
studies  of  the  consensus  of  opinion  regarding  supervised  study,  we 
must  admit  that  they  give  very  little  support  to  the  claims  which 
writers  advance  for  this  procedure.  The  one  possible  exception  to 
this  statement  is  the  claim  of  popularity  of  supervised  study  with 
pupils  and  teachers.  Even  on  this  point  the  opinions  expressed  are 
far  from  being  unanimously  in  favor  of  supervised  study. 

But  we  are  under  no  obligation  to  accept  the  data  as  valid.  The 
questionnaire  method  of  collecting  data  has  itself  been  under  very 
heavy  fire  in  recent  years.  Among  the  objections  which  are  fre- 
quently raised  against  the  method  we  may  mention  three  which  hold 
in  full  force  in  this  connection;  there  is  little  assurance  of  a  valid 
basis  of  judgment  for  the  opinion  expressed;  opinions  are  not 
constant  and  thus,  reliable,  but  rather  vary  greatly  with  the  same 
individual  at  different  times;  differences  of  interpretation  of  questions 
play  an  important  part  in  determining  the  answers  given. 

In  addition  to  these  general  objections  to  the  data,  there  are 
other  difficulties  which  are  peculiar  to  the  present  instance.  Alto- 
gether too  frequently  the  trial  of  supervised  study  was  too  short  to 
admit  of  final  conclusions  regarding  the  comparative  merits  of  the 
new  and  the  old  procedures.  Again,  in  some  of  the  studies  the 
number  of  individuals  questioned  was  too  small  to  provide  facts  of 
wide  significance.  Still  again,  the  individuals  consulted  were  not 
always  those  best  qualified  to  furnish  an  opinion. 

B.    MERITS  CLAIMED  ON  THE  BASIS  OF  EXPERIMENTATION 

In  our  discussion  of  the  merits  claimed  for  supervised  study  we 
are  following  the  usual  practice  of  distinguishing  between  statements 
which  are  based  entirely  upon  personal  judgment  and  those  which 
are  supported  by  objective  data.  We  have  concluded  our  survey  of 
the  first  kind  of  material — individual  opinions  and  reports  of  con- 
sensus of  opinion — and  come  now  to  a  consideration  of  the  claims 
which  are  built  upon  some  sort  of  measured  results.  We  deal,  first, 
with  purely  statistical  studies,  and  second,  with  controlled 
experimentation. 

[29]    . 


1.  Crude  experimentation — purely  statistical  studies. 

\\  e  shall  consider  ten  reports  of  a  statistical  nature  bearing  upon 
the  results  of  supervised  study.  With  two  exceptions  they  are  all 
concerned  with  matters  of  promotion,  failure,  elimination,  and  the 
like.  Five  of  the  ten  articles  are  mentioned  and  criticized  by  Breed.10 
In  each  case  the  comment  will  be  very  brief. 

Claims  of  statistical  studies.  Increase  in  the  percent  promoted 
under  supervised  study  is  mentioned  by  Wiener,  who  employed  the 
double-period  technique  at  Newark,  New  Jersey,  by  Proctor,11  on 
the  basis  of  data  which  he  collected  from  thirty-one  high-school 
principals  on  the  Pacific  Coast,  and  by  Martin12  from  his  study  of 
6.000  school  marks  made  after  five  years  of  the  sixty-minute  divided- 
period  type  of  technique  in  the  Norristown,  Pennsylvania  schools. 

Decrease  in  failures  and  eliminations  from  school  through  super- 
vised study  is  claimed  by  Brown,13  who  employed  the  double-period 
technique  at  Joliet,  Illinois;  by  Hall-Quest,  at  Cairo,  Illinois;  by 
Cole,14  at  Seattle,  Washington,  where  he  used  the  supervised-home 
study  plan,  by  Allen,15  who  at  Springfield  employed  the  laboratory- 
recitation  plan;  by  Proctor;  and  by  Martin. 

Loveland16  reports  the  results  of  six  years'  experience  with  the 
"extra-period"  technique.  The  last  three  of  the  six  years  actually 
showed  an  increase  in  the  number  of  failures  over  the  first  three 
years,  but  this  loss  was  partly  compensated  for  by  a  decrease  in  the 
number  of  eliminations. 

Martin's  study  of  school  marks  with  supervised  study  and  with 
unsupervised  study  is  the  most  extensive  in  the  literature.  He  states 
that  with  supervised  study  (1)  the  failures  constituted  49.5  percent 
the   number   previously   customary,    (2)    the   number  of   minimum 


10Breed,  F.  S.  "Measured  results  of  supervised  study,"  School  Review.  27:186- 
204,  262-84;  March,  April,  1919. 

"Proctor,  W.  M.  "Supervised  studv  on  the  Pacific  Coast,"  School  and  Society. 
6:326-28,  September  15,  1917. 

"Martin,  A.  S.  "The  long  school  day  and  directed  study,"  Education,  39:158- 
64,  November,  1918. 

13Bro\vn,  J.  Stanley.  "Supervised  study  in  high  school,"  School  and  Home 
Education,  24:735-45,  December.  1916. 

"Cole,  Thomas  R.  "One  vear  of  supervised  study,"  School  Review.  25:331-35, 
May.  1917. 

'"'Allen,  I.  M.  'An  experiment  in  supervised  study,"  School  Review.  25:398- 
411.  June,  1917 

"Lovelaxd,  L.  I.  '"Supervised  studv,"  School  Review.  23:489-90,  September. 
1915. 

[30] 


passing  grades  was  reduced,  and  (3)  the  number  of  grades  of  A  and 
B  was  increased. 

Erickson17  accepted  the  evidence  resulting  from  the  use  of  the 
eighty-minute  divided  period  at  Houghton,  Michigan,  as  indicating 
that  supervised  study  reduces  the  amount  of  home  study.  Proctor18 
compared  the  amount  of  time  spent  in  study  by  479  high-school 
pupils  in  systems  which  had  adopted  the  supervised-study  procedure 
with  the  amount  spent  by  1184  high-school  pupils  in  systems  which 
still  employed  the  old  form  of  organization.  Estimates  of  time  were 
furnished  by  the  pupils  themselves.  The  results  showed  that  the 
supervised-study  pupils  spent  less  time  in  home  study  than  the 
unsupervised,  but  that  the  gross  amount  of  time  spent  in  study  by 
the  two  types  of  pupils  was  about  the  same.  The  unsupervised  pupil 
then  regularly  studies  less  time  in  school  and  more  time  at  home. 

Limitations  of  statistical  studies.  We  may  criticize  these  ten 
reports  as  a  group.  All  the  writers  base  their  claims  upon  the  com- 
parison of  gross  results  with  supervised  study  and  previous  results 
without  supervised  study.  The  improvement  noted  is  accredited  to 
supervised  study  as  such. 

Before  the  claims  can  be  accepted  as  valid,  we  need  to  note 
possible  sources  of  error.  In  the  first  place,  the  statistical  method  of 
attacking  such  problems  as  those  of  the  merits  of  supervised  study 
is  not  completely  satisfactory.  The  statistical  method  merely  takes 
the  data  as  it  finds  them,  without  controlling  in  any  way  the  factors 
responsible  for  the  data,  and  manipulates  the  data  toward  certain 
ends  with  no  provision  or  allowance  for  the  effect  of  the  uncontrolled 
factors.  In  the  second  place,  we  have  in  these  particular  cases,  as 
Breed19  points  out,  the  "indirect  and  probably  invalid  assumption 
that  there  is  a  very  clear,  if  not  exact,  correspondence  between  rate  of 
promotion  and  rate  of  improvement." 

The  implications  of  these  general  and  special  sources  of  error 
are  at  once  apparent  when  we  raise  the  question:  How  does  any  one 
of  the  writers  cited  know  that  supervised  study  as  such  increased  the 
percent  of  promotion;  may  there  not  have  been  other  factors,  unob- 
served, which  contributed  much  to  this  improvement?    For  instance, 


"Erickson,  J.  E.  ''The  results  of  supervised  study  in  the  Houghton,  Michigan 
High  School,"  School  Review,  24:752-58,  December,   1916. 

1sProctor,  W.  M.  "Home  and  school  study  time  of  1661  Pacific  Coast  high- 
school  pupils,"  School  and  Society,  6:596-600,  November  17,   1917. 

"Breed,  Frederick  S.  "Measured  results  of  supervised  study,"  School  Review . 
27:189,  March,  1919. 

[31] 


perhaps  there  was  a  general  lowering  of  standards  of  quality,  or  a 
reduction  in  the  requirements  regarding  quantity,  or  an  increase  in 
the  total  amount  of  time  spent  by  the  pupils  in  study.  None  of  these 
factors  could  be  directly  attributed  to  supervised  study,  but  some  of 
them  or  all  of  them  may  have  exerted  large  influence.  By  neglecting 
such  factors  the  statistical  method  fails  to  meet  the  needs  of  the 
situation. 

If,  however,  we  were  disposed  to  overlook  the  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  proof  by  the  statistical  method  and  to  accept  as  valid  the 
claims  for  supervised  study,  we  would  still  lack  an  explanation  for 
the  success  of  supervised  study,  and  would  have  with  us  the 
questions:  Why  did  supervised  study  succeed  in  any  particular 
instance?  Did  the  advantages  arise  in  connection  with  the  whole 
scheme  of  supervised  study,  or  in  connection  with  some  phase  or  part 
of  it?  If  the  latter,  would  it  be  possible  to  isolate  this  part  from 
the  whole  and  to  concentrate  upon  it  without  involving  the  rest  of 
the  machinery  of  supervised  study?  Here  again  we  find  the  statis- 
tical approach  hardly  suited  to  the  task. 

2.  Controlled  experimentation. 

As  compared  with  the  purely  statistical  type  of  investigation 
which  we  have  just  discussed,  the  definitely  experimental  should 
produce  more  significant  results.  The  very  essence  of  the  latter 
method  is  the  control  of  the  factors  which  the  statistical  method  must 
largely  disregard.  By  the  same  token  the  controlled  experimental 
method  is  the  more  exacting  and  difficult.  We  are  not  entirely  unpre- 
pared, therefore,  to  discover  but  five  articles  which  report  the  results 
of  an  experimental  approach  to  the  problem  of  the  value  of  super- 
vised study. 

Breslich — Study  in  mathematics.  In  1912,Breslich,20  in  a  math- 
ematics course  in  the  University  high  school  of  the  University  of 
Chicago,  first  applied  the  controlled  experimental  technique  to  super- 
vised study.  The  pupils  in  the  course  were  divided  into  two  groups 
of  nearly  equal  ability  on  the  basis  of  their  grades  in  mathematics 
the  preceding  semester.  The  unsupervised  group  recited  as  usual  in 
a  period  of  forty-five  minutes  and  prepared  their  advance  assign- 
ments later  in  the  day  either  at  school  or  at  home.  The  supervised 
group  met  for  recitation  one  period  and  remained  with  the  instructor 


20Breslich,    E.    R.     "Teaching    high-school    pupils    how    to    study,"    School 
Review,    20:505-15,   October,    1912. 

[32] 


for  the  next,  in  which  all  preparation  for  the  following  day  was 
completed  under  his  direction.  The  material  covered  and  the  type  of 
instruction  in  the  recitation  period  was  the  same  for  both  sections. 

After  fourteen  weeks  devoted  to  a  study  of  linear  equations,. an 
end-test  was  given,  (a)  The  average  grade  for  the  supervised  group 
was  slightly  higher  than  for  the  unsupervised.  While  the  latter 
secured  a  greater  number  of  A's  and  B's,  they  also  received  a  greater 
number  of  lower  grades.  The  final  advantage  for  the  supervised 
group  is  the  more  significant  since,  on  the  basis  of  the  previous 
semester  grades,  the  unsupervised  group  held  a  slight  initial  advan- 
tage, (b)  The  poorer  pupils  seemed  to  profit  most  while  the  brighter 
may  even  have  suffered  some  loss,  (c)  The  supervised  group  put  in 
less  time  in  study  in  toto  than  did  the  unsupervised,  though  the 
former  were  required  to  spend  a  full  additional  school  period  on  their 
preparation. 

When  the  fourteen  weeks'  experimentation  had  been  completed, 
Breslich  reversed  the  procedure  by  taking  up  a  unit  of  six  lessons  on 
operations  with  fractions,  in  which  the  supervised  group  became  the 
unsupervised  and  vice  versa.  The  results  of  an  examination  at  the 
end  of  the  period  showed  that  the  group  which  had  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  special  training  for  the  longer  time  maintained  their 
superiority.  Apparently  their  improved  methods  of  study  continued 
to  function. 

Minnich — Study  in  geometry.  The  second  of  the  experimental 
studies,  also  in  the  field  of  mathematics,  was  made  by  Minnich21 
at  Bloomington,  Indiana.  A  class  of  thirty-six  pupils  in  plane 
geometry  was  divided  into  two  groups,  as  in  Breslich's  experiment, 
on  the  basis  of  previous  grades.  The  supervised  group  met  for  forty 
minutes  of  recitation  and  spent  the  next  forty  minutes  in  directed 
study  on  the  advance  assignment.  Extra  tasks  were  given  the 
brighter  pupils.  The  unsupervised  group  met  for  a  period  of  recita- 
tion and  made  preparation  outside  without  guidance. 

During  the  fifteen  weeks  of  the  experiment  a  number  of  tests 
were  given  and  close  records  were  kept  of  the  daily  recitations.  In 
both  respects  the  supervised  group  surpassed  the  unsupervised.  The 
supervised  group  had  higher  average  grades  for  ten  of  the  fifteen 
weeks  and  the  same  average  grade  for  three  of  the  other  five  weeks; 


"Minnich,  J.  H.    "An  experiment  in   the  supervised  study  of  mathematics, 
School   Review.   21:670-75,   December,    1913. 

[  33  ] 


in  only  two  of  the  fifteen  weeks  were  they  excelled.  At  the  end  of 
the  experimental  period,  the  advantage  lay  with  the  supervised 
section  both  in  the  average  grade  given  and  in  the  number  of  the 
problems  correctly  solved  in  the  final  examination.  A  further  fact 
of  importance  is  that  the  supervised  group  contained  no  one  who 
failed  in  the  subject  whereas  the  unsupervised  group  lost  two  in 
this  way. 

Breed — Cooperative  experiment  in  English,  Latin,  and  Algebra. 
Both  of  the  preceding  experiments  were  on  rather  a  narrow  scale. 
Breed's  article22  reports  the  results  of  cooperative  experimentation  in 
fourteen  high  schools,  thirteen  in  Michigan  and  one  in  Minnesota. 
The  general  details  of  procedure  were  worked  out  by  a  committee, 
who  with  Breed  at  the  head,  supervised  the  experimentation. 

In  each  school  a  group  of  ninth-grade  pupils  in  a  given  subject 
was  divided  into  two  sections  on  the  basis  of  previous  marks  and 
preliminary  tests.  The  same  teacher  instructed  both  sections,  using 
fifty-minute  periods.  In  one  section,  this  time  was  apportioned 
thirty  minutes  to  recitation  and  twenty  minutes  to  directed  study. 
In  the  other  no  special  instruction  was  given  in  study,  and  the  full 
fifty  minutes  of  the  period  were  devoted  to  recitation.  This  procedure 
was  continued  for  six  weeks  and  then  the  sections  were  reversed. 
Care  was  taken  to  make  clear  to  the  teachers  the  nature  of  their  task 
in  furnishing  pupil-direction  in  study. 

It  is  useless  here  to  go  into  detail  in  the  matter  of  the  results 
obtained  in  the  fourteen  different  schools.  We  may  quote  Breed 
regarding  the  general  results:  "On  the  basis  of  average  results  for 
whole  classes,  supervised  study  of  the  type  tested  was  slightly  less 
efficient  in  first-year  algebra,  was  much  less  efficient  in  ninth-grade 
English,  and  was  much  more  efficient  in  first-year  Latin"  (page  284). 
There  seemed  to  be  corroboration  for  Breslich's  finding  that  the 
poorer  pupils  fare  better  with  supervised  study,  while  the  better  gain 
little  if  anything.  Breed  also  makes  a  number  of  recommendations: 
first,  that  a  "differential"  plan  for  supervised  study  be  employed, 
with  segregation  of  the  poorer  pupils;  second,  that  a  special  technique 
be  devised  for  teachers  in  the  directing  of  study;  third,  that  instruc- 
tion for  the  poorer  pupils  be  "improved,"  and  for  the  brighter  pupils 
"developed"    (an   important   distinction) ;    and   fourth,    that   school 


22Breed,     Frederick     S.      "Measured    results    of    supervised    study,"     School 
Review,   27:186-204,    262-84;   March,   April,    1919. 

[34] 


people  exercise  "caution  against  a  general  assumption  of  the  effective- 
ness of  the  divided  and  double-period  plans  of  supervised  study" 
until  further  experimentation  shall  have  proven  their  worth 
(page  278). 

This  experimental  work  is  interesting  for  the  reason  that  it 
attempted  a  wholesale  attack  upon  the  values  of  supervised  study. 
As  stated,  fourteen  schools  took  part,  and  studies  were  made  in  three 
school  subjects.  It  is  interesting  also  because  of  its  failure  to  find 
clear  and  convincing  proof  for  many  of  the  claims  customarily  made 
for  supervised  study.  While  the  results  cannot  be  called  negative, 
certainly  as  a  whole  they  are  not  strongly  positive. 

Heckert — Study  in  English  composition.  Breed's  report  of  ex- 
perimentation in  ninth-grade  English  as  above  described  influenced 
Heckert,23  at  Miami,  Ohio,  in  1922,  to  try  out  the  divided-period 
technique  in  connection  with  English  composition.  The  same  length 
of  period  and  the  same  distribution  of  time  within  the  period  was 
maintained  as  in  the  Breed  experiment. 

Heckert  tried  to  improve  Breed's  procedure  at  three  points; 
first,  he  gave  more  care  to  training  his  teachers  in  the  direction  of 
study;  second,  he  used  additional  criteria  for  selecting  his  groups; 
and,  third,  he  employed  a  standardized  scale  for  evaluating  all 
composition  work. 

Breed  had  used  previous  English  marks  and  preliminary  com- 
position tests  graded  in  the  usual  way  to  select  his  groups.  Heckert 
divided  his  thirty-four  pupils  on  the  basis  of  their  scores  in  the 
National  Intelligence  Examination  and  in  two  composition  tests 
graded  by  means  of  the  Thorndike-Hillegas  Scale. 

For  twenty-five  one-hour  periods  (five  weeks)  the  same  teacher 
taught  both  sections,  giving  two  tests  during  the  course  of  the  experi- 
ment, and  also  end-tests.  The  procedure  was  not  reversed  at  any 
stage.  The  results  showed  (a)  a  real  gain  for  the  supervised  group, 
both  absolute  and  relative,  over  the  unsupervised;  and  (b)  a  con- 
tinuous gain  for  the  brighter  as  well  as  for  the  poorer  pupils,  though 
the  gain  was  less  pronounced  in  the  case  of  the  former. 

This  second  result  differs,  of  course,  from  the  results  obtained 
by  Breed  and  Breslich  (the  latter  in  mathematics).  Heckert  explains 
the  difference  in  results  naturally  on  his  variation  from  their  experi- 
mental technique,  especially  on  the  point  of  preparing  the  teacher  for 

^Heckert,  J.  \V.  '"The  effects  of  supervised  study  in  English  composition," 
Journal  of  Educational   Psychology,   5:368-80,  May,    1922. 

[35] 


her  work  of  study-direction.  If  he  has  proven  that  it  is  unneces- 
sary for  the  brighter  pupils  to  suffer  from  the  use  of  supervised  study, 
his  experiment  is  an  important  contribution.  At  any  rate,  he  has 
done  well  to  call  attention  to  the  need  of  giving  the  teacher  a  clear 
understanding  of  her  work  in  connection  with  the  guidance  of  study. 

Beauchamp — Study  in  physical  science.  The  most  carefully 
conducted  experimentation  reported  is  that  by  Beauchamp24  in 
teaching  physical  science  in  the  University  high  school  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago.  The  experiment  was  begun  in  October,  1921, 
and  was  completed  in  April,  1922. 

Beauchamp  exercised  extraordinary  care  in  the  selection  of  his 
experimental  and  control  sections.  Five  factors  were  taken  into  con- 
sideration: (1)  size  of  class  (the  same  throughout  for  the  two 
groups),  (2)  age,  (3)  native  intelligence,  (4)  rate  of  silent  reading 
and  (5)  ability  to  interpret  the  material  read.  The  control  group  was 
a  very  little  older  and  very  slightly  less  intelligent,  but  they  read 
more  rapidly  and  understood  better  what  they  read.  All  statements 
have  reference  to  the  average  for  the  groups. 

In  the  course  of  the  experimentation,  the  following  factors  were 
kept  constant:  time  spent  in  study,  amount  of  material  covered,  the 
tests,  the  scoring  of  the  tests,  and  the  oral  presentation  of  the  teacher. 
The  only  variable  permitted  was  the  specific  problem  attacked.  The 
sections  knew  that  an  experiment  was  being  conducted,  and  because 
of  the  natural  rivalry  which  resulted,  were  careful  to  prevent  any 
"leaking"  of  information  about  the  tests  or  class  procedure. 

Both  sections  were  taught  by  Beauchamp  himself,  following  the 
pattern  of  instruction  outlined  by  H.  C.  Morrison,25  and  known  as 
the  "mastery  technique."  At  the  end  of  each  "assimilation  period," 
three  tests  were  given — written  reports  of  the  unit,  completion  tests, 
and  thought  questions.  These  three  tests,  it  was  thought,  measured 
different  phases  of  the  material  acquired  and  were  therefore  supple- 
mentary in  securing  an  adequate  measurement  of  the  whole.  The 
scoring  was  carefully  worked  out  and  impartially  applied.  The  same 
tests  were  given  to  both  the  experimental  and  the  control  groups.   In 

24Beauchamp,  Wilbur  L.  "A  preliminary  study  of  technique  in  the  mastery 
of  subject-matter  in  elementary  physical  science."  Supplementary  Educational 
Monograph,  No.  24.  Studies  in  Secondary  Education,  I.  Chicago:  University  of 
Chicago  Press,   1923,  p.  47-87. 

"Morrison,  H.  C.  "Studies  in  high-school  procedure — half-learning,"  School 
Review,  29:106-18,  February.  1921.  Also,  "Supervised  Study."  School  Review, 
31:588-603,   October,    1923. 

[36] 


the  article,  the  significance  of  the  results  is  shown,  not  simply  by  the 
presentation  of  the  gross  facts,  but  by  an  analysis  of  the  experiment 
itself  and  of  the  teaching. 

The  experimentation  consisted  of  six  parts,  the  first  five  based 
on  "units"  of  work  extending  over  three  to  five  weeks.  In  the  first 
unit,  identical  instructions  were  given  both  groups  in  methods  of 
study  in  order  to  furnish  a  basis  for  comparison  for  later  and 
different  types  of  study-instruction.  At  the  end  of  the  period,  which 
lasted  four  weeks,  tests  were  given;  the  two  sections  had  virtually 
identical  scores,  again  demonstrating  the  fact  of  equal  ability,  or  at 
least  of  equal  use  of  ability  to  assimilate. 

Throughout  the  rest  of  the  experimental  period  the  control 
group  continued  to  employ  the  methods  of  study  suggested  to  them 
in  the  first  unit.  Specific  instructions  on  study,  however,  were  given 
the  experimental  group  in  connection  with  each  of  the  four  problems 
attacked.  These  were:  the  effect  of  instruction  to  develop  the  habit  of 
studying  a  paragraph  to  determine  its  central  idea  and  then  to 
organize  the  rest  of  the  material  about  this  idea;  the  value  of  instruc- 
tion to  develop  the  habit  of  finding  and  answering  questions  in  the 
material  assigned;  the  possibility  of  developing  in  pupils  the  habit 
of  reading  through  a  whole  assignment  before  beginning  careful 
analytical  study  of  the  parts;  and  the  value  of  direct  coaching  on 
the  method  of  solving  thought  questions,  together  with  practice  in 
such  solution.  In  each  of  these  four  sub-experiments  the  supervised 
group  surpassed  the  unsupervised,  though  not  always  by  as  large  a 
margin  as  might  have  been  expected.  Beauchamp  himself  points  out 
also  that  some  of  the  gain  accredited  to  specific  instruction  in  con- 
nection with  some  of  the  problems  may  actually  belong  to  earlier 
instruction. 

The  last  measurement  taken  was  the  relative  gain  made  by  the 
two  sections  in  reading  ability  during  the  period  of  experimentation. 
The  results  seemed  to  show  that  the  supervised  group,  because  of 
their  special  attention  to  analytical  study,  failed  to  increase  the  rate 
of  their  reading  as  much  as  the  control  group,  though  their  improve- 
ment in  comprehension  was  much  greater. 

Beauchamp's  work  is  to  be  especially  commended  on  a  number 
of  points — his  great  care  in  selecting  his  sections,  his  control  of 
instruction  so  as  to  make  it  as  nearly  identical  for  the  two  sections  as 
possible,   the  use  of  a  number  of  tests   instead  of  a   single   test  to 


[37] 


measure  the  results  of  instruction,  the  narrowness  of  the  problems 
attacked,  and  the  analysis  of  the  results  obtained. 

It  is  important  to  note  that  there  was  no  vast  improvement 
shown  by  the  experimental  group  over  the  control  group,  as  the 
claims  for  supervised  study  seem  to  imply.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
advantage  for  the  directed  group,  while  small,  was  consistent. 

Brown  and  Worthington — Cooperative  experiment  in  Algebra, 
English,  and  History.  The  last  of  the  experimental  reports  here 
discussed  as  also  the  most  recent  is  Brown  and  Worthington's26 
cooperative  study  with  five  Wisconsin  high  schools,  which  in  many 
ways  resembles  Breed's  study  with  the  Michigan  schools.  In  as 
much  as  one  of  the  five  high  schools  undertook  three  experiments, 
the  report  covers  a  total  of  seven. 

The  usual  experimental  procedure  was  followed;  in  having 
paired  sections  of  equal  ability  pursue  the  same  subject-matter  under 
the  same  teacher  for  a  given  period  of  time,  at  the  conclusion  of 
which  tests  were  given.  The  sixty-minute  supervised-study  period 
was  used  in  the  experimental  groups,  divided  roughly  into  a  twenty- 
minute  discussion  and  recitation  period,  a  fifteen-minute  assignment, 
and  a  twenty-five  minute  work  period.  The  members  of  the  control 
group  met  with  the  teachers  only  forty-five  minutes  in  recitation — a 
disparity  of  fifteen  minutes  as  compared  with  the  experimental  group. 

Experiments  were  conducted  in  algebra.  English,  and  history. 
The  results  are  given  in  the  article  in  a  few  tables  of  data  in  terms 
of  group  scores,  medians,  and  so  forth.  The  major  conclusions  from 
the  study,  as  found  on  page  612.  are:  first,  two  pairs  of  classes,  in 
algebra  and  English,  showed  "rather  definitely  that  greater  progress 
was  made'"  with  supervised  study;  four  pairs  showed  "slight  varia- 
tions, favorable  to  supervised  study;"  one  pair,  in  United  States 
history,  showed  superiority  for  the  unsupervised  group.  Second,  in 
three  of  the  pairs  fewer  failures  were  made  in  the  supervised  sections: 
in  two.  the  number  was  indeterminate  from  the  data  supplied  from 
the  schools;  and  in  the  seventh  pair,  more  failures  were  found  in  the 
supervised  section.  Third,  ''objective  data  indicated  a  superiority  of 
the  supervised  plan  over  the  recitation  plan  as  a  method  of  instruc- 
tion.'' Fourth,  "the  investigation  showed  also  that  when  objective 
data  are  sought,  the  present  instruments  of  measurement  are  not 


"Browx,  W.  \V..   and  Worthixgtox.  J.  E.    "Supervised   study   in  Wisconsin 
high   schools."    School   Review,   32:603-12,   October,    1924. 

[38] 


wholly  adequate."  Fifth,  all  agencies  involved — principals,  teachers, 
and  pupils — were  generally  favorable  to  the  newer  procedure. 

We  may  spend  some  time  on  a  criticism  of  this  study  since  it 
illustrates  so  well  the  dangers  and  the  difficulties  connected  with  an 
experimental  investigation  of  this  sort. 

The  third  and  fourth  conclusions  as  stated  above  are  clearly 
inconsistent,  unless  we  are  to  assume  that  the  third  is  based  upon 
other  data  than  those  secured  by  means  of  the  measuring  instruments 
whose  objectivity  is  decried  in  the  fourth  conclusion.  In  any  case,  it 
is  a  fair  question  to  ask  what  objective  data  one  might  gather  to 
prove  the  superiority  of  the  supervised-study  procedure. 

The  first  conclusion  states  that  two  pairs  of  classes,  one  of 
which  was  English,  showed  "rather  definitely"  greater  progress  with 
supervised  study.  We  have  in  the  article  data  with  which  we  may 
test  the  validity  of  the  claim.  On  pages  606-07  we  find  the  following 
statement,  "From  the  foregoing  evidence  it  appears  that  the  super- 
vised study  method  was  slightly  superior  in  English."  The  word 
here  is  "slightly"  rather  than  "'rather  definitely."  The  sentence  is 
based  on  a  table  which  shows  that  in  a  composition  test  scored  by  the 
Hillegas  Scale,  the  recitation  group  produced  a  median  paper  which 
was  scored  6.4  whereas  the  median  paper  for  the  supervised  group 
was  6.7.  a  difference  in  favor  of  the  latter  of  .3.  At  the  same  time, 
we  note  that  the  median  individual  in  the  supervised  section  has  an 
I.Q.  of  96.3  as  compared  with  the  median  I.Q.  of  94.5  for  the  control 
group.  If  we  grant  that  intelligence  as  indicated  by  the  I.Q.  may  be 
exactly  measured  and  that  it  bears  a  close  relation  to  quality  of 
school  work  (clearly  the  assumptions  in  the  use  of  the  tests  in  this 
investigation),  then  we  may  ask  how  much  of  the  above  advantage 
in  composition  work  with  the  supervised  section  was  due  to  their 
superiority  in  intelligence? 

There  are.  too,  other  questions  to  be  raised  regarding  the  validity 
of  the  same  conclusion.  Since  the  supervised  group  were  with  the 
teacher  fifteen  minutes  longer  per  day,  are  we  not  to  expect  a  pro- 
portionately better  return  from  the  former  before  we  have  proof  that 
the  supervised  study  procedure  is  even  as  effective  per  unit  of  time 
as  the  recitation  method?  Again,  do  not  the  writers  themselves  admit 
that  the  .3  advantage  for  the  supervised-study  group  means  nothing 
when  they  mention  the  inadequacy  of  the  measuring  instrument? 
And  again,  is  it  not  possible  that  numerous  factors  were  at  work, 
which  the  experimenters  were  unable  to  control  and  have  made  no 

[39] 


effort  to  evaluate,  such  as  teachers'  interest,  amount  and  quality  of 
the  pupils'  outside  work  and  the  like: 

The  following  illustration  serves  to  show  the  care  which  must  be 
taken  in  interpretating  gross  experimental  data.  Superiority  for  the 
supervised-study  procedure  is  claimed  on  the  basis  of  this  table: 

TABLE  II.— SCORES  FOR  THE  TWO  SECTION'S  WITH  BRIGGS' 
ENGLISH  FORM  TEST 


Test 

Median  score 
Recitation  group 

Median  score 
Supervised  group 

82.84 
96.40 
91.46 
95.83 
85.41 

84.90 

\  erb  "liev 

98.64 

Verb  agreement 

81.59 

Possessives 

99.55 

95.95 

In  the  first  place,  we  are  dealing  with  group  scores,  which  may 
actually  conceal  the  real  significance  of  the  experimentation.  In  the 
second  place,  putting  aside  the  question  of  the  validity  of  the  data 
as  measuring  the  traits  of  abilities  trained,  we  note  that  the  differ- 
ences in  the  median  scores  for  the  two  groups,  with  the  exception  of 
the  third  and  fifth  items,  are  insignificant,  and  that  the  advantage  in 
the  one  case  lies  with  the  supervised  group  and  in  the  other,  with 
the  recitation  group. 

General  criticism  of  the  experimentation  reported.  By  way  of 
concluding  our  discussion  of  the  experimental  attack  upon  the 
problems  immediately  connected  with  supervised  study,  we  may 
point  out  a  number  of  general  criticisms,  adverse  and  favorable, 
which  apply  in  varying  degrees  to  the  studies  considered. 

Adverse  criticisms  regarding  experimental  work.  1.  In  general, 
the  scope  of  the  problem  undertaken  has  been  too  broad.  That  is. 
the  experimenter  has  usually  tried  to  prove  too  much  at  one  time — 
that  the  supervised-study  procedure  as  a  general  proposition  produces 
superior  results  to  the  older  recitation  type  of  organization.  From 
the  very  nature  of  the  experimentation  it  has  followed  that  the  con- 
clusions are  open  to  question. 

2.  There  usually  has  been  insufficient  control  of  variables.  In  a 
way.  this  criticism  follows  directly  from  the  first;  nicety  of  control 
has  been  made  impossible  by  the  grossness  of  the  problem  attacked. 

C  40  ] 


On  the  other  hand,  where  the  problem  has  been  restricted,  variables 
have  been  unnoticed,  or  if  noted,  uncontrolled.  For  example,  we 
may  mention  the  varying  amounts  of  time  spent  by  experimental 
and  control  groups  on  their  work,  the  practice  of  making  special 
assignments  with  supervised  study  in  order  to  keep  the  brighter 
pupils  busy  and  interested,  and  the  difference  in  the  teacher's  atti- 
tude in  dealing  with  experimental  and  control  groups.  Such  factors 
must  certainly  have  affected  the  scores  of  the  pupils  in  the  final 
measurement  of  results. 

3.  The  data  supplied  in  the  reports  are  treated  usually  only  in 
gross;  that  is,  the  comparison  of  supervised  with  unsupervised  study 
is  usually  in  terms  of  averages,  tertiles,  and  so  forth.  The  fortunes 
of  the  individual  receive  slight  attention.  Little  effort  is  expended 
to  discover  who  are  especially  helped,  and  who,  if  any,  hindered  by 
the  change  in  school  practice. 

4.  The  results  are  usually  presented  without  analysis  to 
determine  the  Why  as  well  as  the  What.  More  specifically,  the 
element,  pupil-direction  is  seldom  isolated  from  the  whole  situation, 
and  its  importance  as  conditioning  the  success  or  failure  of  supervised 
study  is  seldom  recognized.  There  seems  to  be  a  general  assumption 
that  whatever  the  results,  they  may  be  traced  directly  to  the  tech- 
nique employed. 

5.  In  some  cases  the  conclusions  which  have  been  reached  as  the 
result  of  some  particular  piece  of  experimentation  have  been  general- 
ized to  hold  with  equal  validity  for  all  schemes  of  supervised  study 
regardless  of  varying  factors  in  different  situations.  In  fairness  to 
the  experimenters  it  should  be  noted  that  this  criticism  should  be 
lodged  more  especially  against  the  general  writers  on  the  subject  of 
supervised  study. 

6.  There  is  a  tendency  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  relatively 
small  differences  in  comparing  experimental  and  control  groups, 
especially  when  the  difference  is  in  favor  of  the  experimental  group. 
On  the  percent  scale  a  difference  of  five  as  determined  by  tests  is 
insignificant,  even  when  the  difference  refers  to  averages  or  medians. 

7.  The  experimentation  on  supervised  study  has  attacked  only 
one  side,  or  one  phase  of  the  results  of  supervised  study,  namely,  its 
merits  in  securing  more  effective  acquisition  of  information.  The 
assumption  that  supervised  study  possesses  other  advantages  is 
clearly  shown  in  the  long  list  of  claims  we  were  able  to  cite  from 
the  literature.    Breslich  and  Beauchamp  have  both  shown  a  recogni- 

[41] 


tion  of  this  fact  in  their  comments  on  the  effect  of  the  training  given 
the  experimental  group  in  later  learning  situations. 

Positive  value  of  experimental  work.  1.  In  spite  of  the  small 
advantages  customarily  found  in  favor  of  the  supervised-study  pro- 
cedure, and  in  spite  even  of  inconsistencies  and  exaggerations  in  the 
conclusions  drawn,  we  cannot  read  the  experimental  literature  with- 
out being  convinced  that  we  have  valid  and  adequate  grounds  for 
believing  in  the  comparative  superiority  of  the  supervised-study 
procedure  over  the  older  types  of  organization.  Experimentation  has 
given  us  justification  for  this  belief  as  no  other  agency  could  have 
done.  If  we  add  together  all  of  the  separate  experiments  enumerated 
in  the  six  reports  (regarding  Beauchamp's  work  as  a  single  experi- 
ment) we  have  a  total  of  twenty-six  experiments,  the  big  majority  of 
which  tend  to  establish  the  value  of  supervised  study  on  at  least  one 
point — the  pupils  whose  efforts  in  study  are  directed  acquire  more 
information  than  the  pupils  who  receive  no  special  instruction  in 
study. 

2.  Experimentation  has  also  indirectly  and  implicitly  indicated 
the  importance  of  the  element  which  we  have  styled  pupil-direction. 
The  twenty-six  experiments  wrhich  we  have  canvassed  disagree 
radically  on  the  type  of  technique  used  in  each;  their  only  point  of 
agreement  is  the  fact,  that  pupil-direction  was  undertaken.  We  find, 
it  is  true,  very  few  direct  references  to  this  element,  but  it  is  not  an 
improbable  hypothesis  that  the  degree  of  success  or  failure  of  the 
various  experiments  to  demonstrate  the  value  of  the  supervised-study 
procedure  was  proportionate  to  the  amount  of  attention  paid  this 
element.  It  will  be  recalled  that  Heckert  took  this  assumption  as  the 
basis  of  an  experiment  which  seemed  to  support  the  hypothesis. 

3.  We  have  said  that  experimentation  has  attacked  but  one 
angle  of  the  situation  when  it  has  shown  that  supervised  study  makes 
possible  the  more  effective  acquisition  of  information.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  defense  of  the  experimentation,  one  may  doubt  whether  all 
of  the  claims  for  the  new  procedure  are  susceptible  of  objective 
proof — unless  one  is  prepared  to  accept  the  doctrine  that  everything 
that  exists  is  measurable.  At  any  rate,  a  beginning  has  been  made  in 
certain  of  the  experiments  which  show  that  improved  habits  of  study 
tend  to  persist. 

4.  The  earlier  type  of  experimentation  has  probably  accom- 
plished all  that  it  can  for  us,  in  pointing  out  in  a  general  way  the 
value  of  supervised  study.   What  is  needed  is  more  work  of  the  type 

[42] 


represented  by  Beauchamp's  investigation.  Narrow  problems, 
capable  of  adequate  control  in  experimentation,  with  the  emphasis 
upon  the  analysis  of  the  results  in  terms  of  the  type  of  learning  called 
for  and  in  terms  of  individual  pupils,  should  receive  the  major  share 
of  experimental  attention.  From  such  studies  there  should  develop 
a  clearer  understanding  of  the  gains  to  be  expected  as  well  as  a  more 
satisfactory  methodology  of  instruction. 


[43] 


CHAPTER  IV 
CONCLUDING  STATEMENT 

In  this  critical  summary  of  certain  periodical  literature  on  super- 
vised study  in  secondary  schools,  we  have  noted  a  serious  confusion 
in  educational  writings  and  hence  in  educational  thinking  in  connec- 
tion with  the  meaning  of  the  term  "supervised  study."  We  have  seen 
the  extreme  variability  in  the  types  of  technique  which  are  employed 
for  the  administration  of  pupil-direction  in  study.  We  have  pointed 
out  the  common  practice  of  making  general  unproven  claims  in 
regard  to  the  merits  of  the  supervised-study  procedure.  We  have 
also  canvassed  this  literature,  giving  special  attention  to  articles  of 
an  experimental  nature,  with  reference  to  the  validity  of  the  evidence 
relating  to  the  merits  of  supervised  study. 

In  concluding  this  discussion,  we  shall  make  a  number  of  obser- 
vations of  a  rather  general  sort  regarding  both  the  literature  on 
supervised  study  and  the  attitude  taken  by  writers  toward  this  new 
procedure. 

In  the  first  place,  we  must  admit  that  an  unfortunately  large 
amount  of  writing  on  supervised  study  is  repetitious  and,  to  put  it 
mildly,  futile.  The  general  impression  resulting  from  the  reading  of 
several  hundred  pages  of  periodical  matter  on  the  subject  is  that  the 
same  things  might  have  been  said  to  greater  effect  in  a  fraction  of  the 
space  actually  used. 

In  the  second  place,  we  are  struck  by  the  failure  of  some  writers 
to  confine  their  discussions  to  supervised  study  without  involving 
unrelated  issues.  We  need  mention  here  as  examples  only  a  few  of 
the  newer  pliases  of  methodology  and  administrative  procedure 
which  are  found  continually  and  variously  associated  with  supervised 
study — classification  of  pupils  in  homogeneous  groups,  teaching  by 
projects,  individual  instruction,  educational  and  vocational  guidance. 
Some  writers  even  add  to  the  general  confusion  by  making  supervised 
study  equivalent  in  meaning  to  some  of  these  educational  practices. 

In  the  third  place,  many  of  the  investigations  of  supervised  study 
appear  to  represent  much  wasted  _effon._ .since-it-is-- unnecessary  to 
prove  the  obvious.  We  may  assume  that  any  intelligent  effort  to 
apply  generally  accepted  principles  of  teaching  will  be  more  efficient 

[44] 


than  instruction  which  neglects  or  violates  such  principles.  It  will  be 
noted  that  we  are  referring  here  rather  to  pupil-guidance  than  to 
technique,  and  this  fact  leads  us  to  the  next  general  observation. 

In  the  fourth  place,  relatively  too  much  attention  in  educational 
writing  and  thinking  has  been  paid  to  the  technique  of  supervised  ^- 
study,  and  too  little  attention  to_pupil-direction  in  study.  On  page  11 
we  stated  our  purpose  of  devoting  the  majDt"  share  of  Our  comment 
to  the  technique  of  supervised  study.  There  were  two  reasons  for 
this  decision:  the  periodical  literature  on  pupil-direction  is  limited 
in  quantity  and  in  quality;  and  this  literature  does  not  lend  itself 
readily  to  systematic  treatment.  Hence,  weJiavje-jnade  but  incidental 
reference  to  pupil-direction,  and  yet  even  such  reference  must  have 
suggested  the  thought  that  pupil-direction  is  the  very  heart  and 
center  of  supervised-study. 

There  may  or  may  not  be  some  technique  which  is  superior  to 
all  others  whatever  the  circumstances.  This  is  improbable.  There 
may  be,  and  probably  is,  some  technique  which  is  superior  to  all 
others  for  a  given  situation.  And  yet,  granted  that  this  technique 
could  be  discovered  and  instituted,  we  have  little  assurance  that  it  / 
would  produce  the  most  desirable  results.  When  we  concentrate  J 
upon  technique,  we  are  dealing  with  but  the  externals,  the  form,  and 
neglecting  the  content.  Sound  pupil-direction  in  a  poor  technique  is 
better  than  a  good  technique  with  faulty  pupil-direction.  It  may 
honestly  be  questioned  whether  any  sincere  and  intelligent  (note  the 
adjectives)  endeavor  to  give  pupil-direction  ever  failed  of  its  purpose, 
regardless  of  the  technique  of  which  it  was  a  part. 

Our  plea,  then,  is  for  a  change  in  emphasis  in  thinking  and  in 
practice.  We  need  to  be  less  anxious  about  the  type  of  technique 
which  the  administrator  chooses  for  his  school,  and  more  concerned 
with  the  quality  of  pupil-direction— whieh-the-teacher  gives  in  the 
period  of  study. 


[45] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Allen,   I.   M.   "An   experiment   in   supervised   study,"    School    Review,   25:398-411, 

June,  1917. 
Beauchamp,   Wilbur    L.     "A    preliminary    study    of   technique    in    the    mastery   of 

subject-matter    in    elementary    physical    science,"    Supplementaray    Educational 

Monographs.  No.  24.    Studies  in  Secondarv  Education,  I.  Chicago:  University 

of  Chicago  Press.  1923,  p.  47-87. 
Beauchamp,  Wilbur  L.    "Supervised  study  in  elementary  phvsical  science,"   School 

Review,  32:175-81,  March,  1924. 
Bixler,    Roy    W.     "Getting    awav    from    formal    lesson-learning,"    School    Review, 

32:364-70,  May,  1924. 
Breed,    Frederick    S.     "Measured    results    of    supervised    studv,"    School    Review, 

27:186-204,  262-84;  March,  April,  1919. 
Breslich,   E.    R.     "Supervised   study   as   a   means   of   providing   supplementary   in- 
dividual  instruction."     Thirteenth   Yearbook  of  the   National    Society  for  the 

Study  of   Education,   Part    I.    Chicago:      University  of   Chicago   Press,    1914. 

p.  32-71. 
Breslich,   E.   R.    "Supervised   study   in   mathematics,"   School   Review,   31:733-47, 

December,  1923. 
Breslich,    E.    R.     "Teaching    high-school    pupils    how    to    study,"    School    Review, 

20:505-15.  October,   1912. 
Brown,   H.  G.    "Supervised  study  in  the  schools  of  Lebanon,"   Elementarv   School 

Journal.   16:179-80.  November,   1915. 
Brown,  J.  Stanley.    "Supervised  study  in  high  school."  School  and  Home  Educa- 
tion. 24:735-45,  December,  1916. 
Brown,    W.   W.,    and   Worthington,    J.    E.     "Supervised    study    in    Wisconsin    high 

schools,"  School  Review,  32:603-12,  October,  1924. 
Burr,  A.  W.    "Directed  study,"  School  Review,  27:90-100,  February,   1919. 
Burr,    A.    W.      "How   is    supervised    study    doing?"      School    Review,    32:224-26, 

March.   1924. 
Carter,  Ralph  E.    "Teaching  a  study  habit,"  School  Review,  29:695-706,  761-75; 

November,  December,  1921. 
Cole,   Thomas    R.     "One   year   of   supervised    study,"    School    Review,    25:331-35, 

May,  1917. 
Davis,  Calvin  O.    Junior  High  School  Education.    New  York:   World  Book  Com- 
pany, 1924.  p.  43-44  and  339-42. 
Downing,   E.   R.    "Supervised  study  and  the   science   laboratorv,"   School   Review, 

25:646-51,  November,  1917. 
Dunn,  Grace  A.   "Value  of  supervised  study,"  Teachers  College  Record,  18:430-37, 

November,   1917. 
Erickson,  J.  E.    "The  results  of  supervised  study  in  the  Houghton,  Michigan,  High 

School,"  School  Review,  24:752-58,  December,   1916. 
Farnham,  C.  E.    "Supervised  study,"  Education,  40:171-76,  November,   1919. 
Hall-Quest,    Alfred    L.     "How    to    introduce    supervised    study,"    School    Review, 

26:337-40,  May,  1918. 
Hall-Quest,  Alfred  L.   "The  direction  of  study  as  the  chief  aim  of  the  high  school," 

Chapter  X,  The  Modern  High  School,  edited  by  Chas.  H.  Johnston.   New  York: 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  1916,  p.  265-94. 

[46] 


Hanes,     Ernest.      '"Supervised     studv     in     English,"     School     Review,     32:356-63, 

May.  1924. 
Harris,  G.  L.    "Supervised  studv  in  the  University  of  Chicago  High  School,"  School 

Review,  26:490-510,  September,  1918. 
Heckert,  J.  W.    "The  effects  of  supervised  study  in   English  composition,"  Journal 

of  Educational  Psychology,  5:368-80,  May,  1922. 
Hines,  H.  C.    "Supervised  studv  in   the  junior  high   school,"   School  and   Societv. 

6:518-22,  November  3,  1917.' 
Holzinger,  Karl  J.    "Periodical  literature  on  supervised  study  during  the  last  five 

years,"  Elementary  School  Journal,  20:146-54,  October.  1919. 
Ixglis,  Alexander.    Principles  of  Secondary  Education.    Boston:    Houghton  Mifflin 

Company.  1918,  p.  713-15. 
Judd,    Charles    H.    Psychology'    of    High-School     Subjects.     Boston:      Ginn     and 

Company.  1915.  p.  436-72.' 
Kennedy,  J.    "The  Batavia  plan   after  fourteen  years  of  trial,"  Elementary  School 

Teacher.  12:449-56.  June.  1912. 
Koos,  Leonard   V.    The  Junior   High   School.     Xew  York:     Harcourt,    Brace,   and 

Howe.  1920,  p.  153-56. 
Loveland,  L.  I.    "Supervised  study,"    School  Review,  23:489-90.  September.  1915. 
Martin,  A.  S.    '"The  long  school  day  and  directed  study,"    Education,   39:158-64, 

November.  1918. 
Mason,  YV.  L.    "Xew  svstem  of  supervised  studv,"  Education,   38:117-20.   October. 

1917. 
Merriam,  Eugene  E.    "Technique  of   supervised   study."   School  Review,   26:35-38, 

January.  1918. 
Miller,  H.  L.  Directing  Study.    Xew  York:    Charles  Scribner's  Sons,   1922.  377  p. 
Miller,    H.   L..    and   Johnson,    Dorothy.     ''Directing   study   for   mastery."    School 

Review,  30:777-86,  December,  1922. 
Minnich,  J.  H.    "An  experiment  in  the  supervised  study  of  mathematics."  School 

Review,  21:670-75,  December.   1913. 
Mitchell,    H.     "Supervised    study    in    foreign    languages,"    Education,    38:385-87, 

January.   1918. 
Morrison,  H.  C.    "Studies  in  high-school  procedure — direct  and  indirect  teaching," 

School  Review,  29:19-30,  January.  1921. 
Morrison,    H.    C.     "Studies    in    school    procedure — hall-learning."    School    Review. 

29:106-18,  February.  1921. 
Morrison,  H.  C.    "Supervised  study."  School  Review.  31:588-603,  October,  1923. 
Xielson,  C.  H.   "An  innovation  in  supervised  study."  School  Review,  25:220.  March. 

1917.    (Editorial  comment.) 
Xutt,    H.  W.    Principles   of   Teaching   High   School   Pupils.    Xew   York:     Centurv 

Company.  1924.  p.  295-323. 
Parker,    Samuel  C.    Methods   of  Teaching   in   High    Schools.     Boston:     Ginn    and 

Company,  1920.  p.  391-417. 
Pieper,  Chas.  J.    "Supervised  study  in  natural  science,"  School  Review,  32:122-33, 

February,  1923. 
Proctor,  W.  M.    "Home  and  school  study  time  of  1,661   Pacific  Coast  high-school 

pupils."  School  and  Society,  6:596-600,  Xovember  17,  1917. 
Proctor,   W.   M.     "Supervised    study   on    the   Pacific    Coast,"    School    and    Societv, 

6:326-28,  September  15.  1917. 
Reavis,   W.   C.    "Administration   of   supervised    studv."    School   Review.    32:413-19. 

June,  1924. 
Reavis,    \V.    C.    "Factors   that   determine    the    habits    of    study    in    grade    pupils." 

Elementary  School  Teacher,  12:71-81,  October,  1911. 

[47] 


Reavis,  W.  C.    "The  importance  of  studv  programs  for  high-school  pupils,"  School 

Review,   19:398-405.  June.   1911. 
Robert,   A.   C.    "Supervised    study   in   the    Everett   High    School,"    School    Review. 

24:735-45.  December.  1916. 
Rynearsox.    Edward.     "The    conference    hour    in    the    Pittsburgh    high    schools." 

School  Review.  20:246-53.  April.  1912. 
Stetsox,   Paul   C.    "A   survev  of   supervised   studv."   The   American    School    Board 

Journal.  54:19-20.  85-86.' June.   1917. 
Wiener,  William.    "Home-study  reform."  School  Review.  20:526-31,  October.  1912. 
Wiener,  William.  "The  social  value  of  school  study  versus  home  study,"  Chapter 

XI.    The    Modern    High    School,    edited   by    Chas.    H.    Johnston.     New    York: 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons.  1916,  p.  295-311. 
Willett.   G.   W.    "Supervised   stud}-   in   high    school,"   School   Review,    26:259-72. 

April.  1918. 
Young,    Ecla.    and    Simpsox,    M.    R.     "A   technique   for   the    lengthened   period." 

School  Review.  30:199-204.  March.   1922. 


[48] 


